UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
from the collection of Professor Koppel S. Pinson
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
NATIONALITY AND
INTERNATIONALISM
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
NATIONALITY AND
INTERNATIONALISM
BY
W. B. PILLSBURY
PROFESSOR OP PSYCHOLOGY, DIBECTOB OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY, UNIVERSITY OP MICHIGAN. AUTHOR OF
"ESSENTIALS op PSYCHOLOGY," "ATTENTION," AITO "THE PSYCHOLOGY OP REASONING"
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
TO M. M. P.
PREFACE
THIS book was suggested by contact that I had with the American Greeks returned to Greece to fight in the Balkan War. That raised for me a number of problems which I have tried to answer and in part have answered to my own satisfaction. On the more theoretical sides much has been suggested by the writings of Graham Wallas and his school.
The position taken appears, now that the work is finished, to be a compromise between the position of MacDougall, with his great in- sistence on immediate instinct, and that taken by Trotter who finds all social phenomena ex- plained by the fear of the individual for the social whole, with the consequent dominance of convention. I have shown that the social re- sponses are in part due to each of these forces. They begin in a rudimentary way as instincts and are then determined by conventions and ideals developed through experience and im- posed upon the group by the ''herd instinct." It also seems necessary to insist that the re- sult of the action of these forces is not un-
viii PKEFACE
worthy. One obtains the impression from read- ing Trotter, at least, that the action of man in the mass is altogether deplorable, that all of his conventions lead to undesirable results. One forgets in this view that reason itself is nothing more than a control of action and thought by wide experience and tradition, and that while conventions at times enforce an ultra conservatism, they also prevent unconsidered action on .impulse, as well as thinking by un- controlled association. This is an instance of a general tendency in ethics and psychology, to forget that a process when analyzed is the same process as that with which one started.
I desire to thank my colleague, Professor Beeves Dow, for reading certain of the later chapters, and for suggestions he made in con- nection with them, without, however, holding him responsible for the doctrines themselves or for any errors that may have escaped me. I also desire to thank my wife for help with the proofs.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER FAOE
I. THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 1
II. THE NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT — SOCIAL
INSTINCTS 21
III. HATE AS A SOCIAL FORCE 63
IV. NATIONALITY IN HISTORY 90
V. NATIONALITY IN THE PROCESS OF NATURALIZATION 126
VI. THE NATION AND THE MOB CONSCIOUSNESS . . 164
VII. THE NATIONAL MIND AND How IT THINKS, FEELS,
AND ACTS 186
VIII. THE NATION AS IDEAL 224
IX. NATIONALITY AND THE STATE 249
X. NATIONALITY AND SUPER-NATIONALITY AS EX- PRESSED IN A LEAGUE OF NATIONS . 278
The
Psychology of Nationality and I nternationalism
CHAPTEE I
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY
PKOBABLY no word has been spoken more often in the political discussions of recent years than the word ''nation" or "nationality." No prin- ciple has been more frequently referred to by all sides in arguing for right and wrong than that each nation is entitled to settle its own af- fairs. One may assert that there has been many a declaration of independence for nationalities that corresponds to the American Declaration of Independence for the individual, that each nation has a right to life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness in its own right just as the individual American claimed that right for him- self. We are assured over and over again that the next peace must be based upon the principle
1
2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
of nationality. This means apparently that each nation, however small, must be permitted to manage its own affairs, without interference from any outside nation. All of these discus- sions presuppose an agreement as to what a nation is and the existence of definite criteria for deciding conflicting claims between peoples that believe a group of people to belong to its own rather than to another nation.
That these criteria are not altogether clear in different cases is evident from numerous dis- cussions. Both France and Germany claim Alsace and Lorraine, one on the basis of lan- guage and the desire of the inhabitants, the other on the ground of formal connection earlier in history, and community of race. In Ireland the same dispute exists in another form. Are the Orangemen to be regarded as Irish when they prefer to be English, or shall they deter- mine their own affiliations! Here the question is different since it turns on whether a discord- ant element in a community is to be regarded as part of the community or as independent. The problem of criteria presents itself at many points on the borders between the central and eastern and southeastern peoples. Are the in- habitants of the Dalmatian Islands Italian be- cause they speak the language and because their land formed part of the Roman and, later, part
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 3
of the Venetian Empire? Are the people of Dobrudja Roumanians or Bulgarians'? Is the Macedonian, Serb or Greek or Bulgarian? Are Little Russians really Russian or are they a separate people because of their different re- ligion and slightly different language? These and many similar problems must be settled be- fore the world can be properly partitioned, and made safe for democracy or guaranteed a per- manent peace. But before any one of them can be solved or even given a basis for adequate discussion, we must decide what a nation is and discover suitable criteria of nationality.
Many suggestions have been made as to what constitutes a nation, and most are accepted in greater or less degree in- the popular discus- sions. Most extended, perhaps, of the charac- teristics regarded as essential is language. It is felt by many both among the uninstructed and the more scientific thinkers that nationality is measured by the presence of a common lan- guage. We feel that the man who can speak our own tongue is much nearer to us than the man with whom we cannot converse. Many of the authorities on nationalization insist that all
•
citizens should be compelled to speak the lan- guage of the nation if they are to be regarded as citizens. One group of scientists implies, if it does not assert, that language is the best test of
4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
descent in doubtful cases, and some incline to the view that descent and language must always go hand in hand. The second criterion of na- tionality is this line of descent. Not infre- quently do we find it implied that nation must have some close connection with race — that common physical descent is essential or at least highly desirable if a nation is to be a unit in the best and fullest sense. The statement is fre- quently made that the wonderful resistance of France to what seemed to be overpowering force was due to the purity of the race, to the absence of alien elements in the race. That the racial feature is important in our own thought in popular discussions is seen in the prevalence of race prejudice. If one assigns an individual to another race, he is willing to ac- cept that as an explanation of many shortcom- ings and will be suspicious of the probable mo- tives or capacity of that individual until he has had considerable experience with the individual or with the race. Any popular political discus- sion will bear evidence of this tendency. Prob- ably language and race are the elements most frequently accepted in current discussions as criteria of nationality.
In discussing the problem of nationality in general, distinction must be made between the nation and the state, between the consciousness
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 5
cf communal solidarity and the accepted politi- cd organization. For many purposes the two an identical. A form of government usually rests upon the willingness of the governed to regard themselves as part of the social whole ; and i successful government of a mass of peo- ple \\ill frequently develop in them a national unity. For our present purposes we must dis- tinguish between the terms no matter how ready we are to recognize their points of resemblance. By a nauon we mean a group of individuals that feels itself one, is ready within limits to sacri- fice the individual for the group advantage, that prospers as a whole, that has a group of emo- tions experienced as a whole, each of whom re- joices with the advancement and suffers with the losses of the group. The spirit of nation- ality may be defined as the personification of this unity. As opposed to this the state would be merely the system of government, a unity for the sake of making and enforcing laws. It rests upon a feeling of community in most cases, but frequently the recognized unity extends beyond the bounds of the state and still more often the edicts of the state may be enforced upon indi- viduals who do not feel themselves a part of the national group. For our purposes, the dis- tinction must be closely drawn. Nationality is the mental state or community in behavior.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
This characterizes the nation, and this concerns us.
The most widely accepted theory of the stite and of the nation, in so far as state and nation are confused, is that the nation is an enlarge- ment of the family, and the state a development of the paternal authority. We find this theory so far as it affects the state definitely formu- lated by Plato in his Laws and it has b^en re- peated in different forms by most writers on the development of society from his time on. If this theory be accepted it would explain why both racial descent and language hive been adopted as the criteria of nationality. Were the human organization to have developed from the family, all members of the nation would speak a common tongue and all would be blood relations, would be descendants of common ancestors. One could expect to trace the mem- bers of the nation by the physical similarities as well as by the similarities in speech. The nation would be a real biological unit. On the mental side, one might think of the nation as united by an extension of the family ties. The solidarity would be an extension of the family solidarity and the social instincts would be the racial instincts in a wider application.
In all primitive communities there is some evidence for identity between the family and
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 7
the narrower political units. Kindred and clan are recognized among all of the races of North- ern Europe until well down into medieval times, and traces can be found in remote dis- tricts until within two centuries. The system of land holding in early England shows many traces of the original family connections, and still more strikingly, the system of money pay- ments to kindred for slaying a member is con- clusive evidence of the solidarity of the kindred in all the Teutonic peoples. Here we seem to approach the condition demanded by the theory that the children of one father form a single group and these are united for purposes of re- ceiving and paying the weregild or blood money into larger groups or kindred to the fourth and sometimes to the eighth or ninth degree of re- lationship. The kindred or clan was an ad- ministrative unit as well as a group bound by ties of friendliness, a social unit. From the clan various groupings are made in different lands, but in all alike the larger groups are aggrega- tions of clans. Whether the lines of descent are recognized in the larger groups is not so clear. Certainly there is evidence that new groupings of clans that do not recognize degrees of blood relationship may be made in an emergency, and that in ordinary circumstances the degree of blood relationship, if the unit extends beyond
8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
the clan, has little to do with the system of or- ganization.
That this closeness of blood relationship is not the only factor in the development of the notion of a social whole and may be in a meas- ure opposed to it and even need to be overcome before the larger allegiances can be fully de- veloped is clear from a number of circumstances of the organization, both in the ancient Teutonic peoples and in the modern primitive. First we have good evidence that the notion of kinship is in some degree symbolic, that while the fam- ily is thought of as a group descended from a single father, this is not necessarily true in a strict sense. In the first place the relation was never quite restricted to blood relationship. The practice has grown up almost everywhere of tracing the connection only on one side, through one parent. In most of the Teutonic and Celtic peoples only the relationship on the male side was accepted in the constitution of the clan. While the maternal relations might at times be recognized as in the weregild, the degree of their contribution was always less than that of the paternal and in many of the duties the contribution of the maternal kin was voluntary.1 Obviously the ties of emotion, which are as strong on one side as on the other,
'Phillpott: "Kindred and Clan."
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 9
were not the basis of the connection of the kin- dred. It was rather a convenient form of polit- ical organization.
The symbolic character of the clan is evident, too, from the fact that a man might be adopted into the group and have all of the rights of the natural members. In many of the savage tribes some symbol of adoption may be more im- portant in determining the relationship than the known paternity. Among the Todas of India a son known to be the offspring of another man may be accepted as the son by a ceremony per- formed at the birth, and where the ceremony and known facts are at variance, the ceremony is the deciding factor. The limitations of blood relationship are evident among the many peo- ples who measure relationship by totems. The members of the totem are restricted to descend- ants through the male side. That kinship as such cannot be regarded as the only meas- ure of the tribe appears from the requirement that marriage must always be with a member of another Totem. At this stage, race and kindred, as measured by the possession of the same To- temic symbol, must be distinct, since the mar- riages are usually restricted to members of the same tribe, but to those that belong in another immediate family. Even in the Teutonic peoples other wider systems of organization develop
10 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
that are recognized as distinct from the family or kindred. The chief is not the mere heredi- tary head of the tribe or group of tribes but fre- quently seems to derive his authority from some other source. Early, the leadership of the manor, of the war chief, and later of the church seemed to compete with the tie of kinship to its ultimate destruction. It is this wider com- munity from which the modern nation has de- veloped rather than from the tribe.
Granted then that the relationship of the fam- ily is the one from which the relationship of the nation developed in the beginning, it must still be admitted that sufficient departures appear later to make the nation a different entity and differently derived from the family as an ex- pression of mere kinship. Either, when the kin- ship becomes remote, the tribe or clan takes on a symbolic character that changes it essentially from the family proper, or new relationships develop which are different in kind and in the emotions that they express from those of the family. In either case the nation raises a new problem in group psychology, and the questions that arise with reference to what a particular nation may be cannot be answered by tracing the lines of descent.. We have, then, in the dis- cussion of the nature of the nation or of nation- ality to ask one by one a series of questions
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 11
that grow out of the assumption that the na- tion may be an outgrowth of the family, and of the different theories that oppose or limit this theory. First, how far are nation and race identical and the nation merely a group of in- dividuals of similar descent with consequent physical and mental characters. Second, how far may one develop the mental qualities that constitute the nation in individuals of a differ- ent race.
The first question is particularly important in the light of the widespread belief in the im- portance of race which the victims of the dis- crimination regard as race prejudice and the supporters as a necessary means of keeping the race reasonably pure. The extreme upholders of this theory insist that no real nation can be developed from mixed blood, or, at least, that the more pure the blood of the nation, the stronger and more unified is that nation. Op- posed to this is a group equally positive in its belief that only a mixed race may be strong, although few go to the extreme of insisting that the greater the mixture the stronger the race. In these popular discussions, even in race con- gresses there is frequently more prejudice than reason. The members of the races that are re- garded as inferior always point to the accom- plishments of the best of their race as evidence
12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
of what they might accomplish were they given a chance, while the believers in the superiority of one race or group of races emphasize what the worst of the lower races have done or failed to do and forget the lower individuals in their own or the worst acts of their best.
It cannot be denied that at present clear evi- dence of racial capacity is lacking. At the ex- tremes no one would assert that all the races are equal, on the other hand no one can grade the races with respect to their intelligence. Standards of accomplishment are absolutely different. Tagore denies that one can measure ability by business capacity or attainments in pure science. He insists that artistic apprecia- tion is quite as important. Others insist that race prejudice and natural environmental con- ditions have prevented the backward races from getting a fair chance and that they are back- ward because of that rather than from lack of capacity. I suppose that until they have their chance and really succeed this would not prove capacity, however much it may complicate the discussion or the possibility of asserting equal- ity. It is not sufficient to say that the negro has not done more because prejudice prevents him from being accepted as an equal in the pro- fessions. It may in part explain the failure, but individuals of other races overcome prejudices
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 13
and no one can say whether these prejudices are greater or less than those under which the negro labors. This makes it a question whether it is of any advantage to have a nation all of one race, whether in fact any emphasis at all is to be put upon the line of descent. We need not settle this problem if we could ; suffice it for our purpose to indicate that race, could one know it with certainty, is not necessarily final in determining capacity.
The strongest advocates of the theory hold that race and nation are or should be identical, believe that races are distinct physical entities which may be discovered by measuring the members of the race. The anthropometrists of the last generation worked on the assumption that it was possible to discover a group of char- acteristics that went together, which when known would characterize the race. The signs upon which they insisted most strongly were the size and shape of the skull, the shape of the nose and other features, stature, and pigmen- tation. Some of them seem to believe that one could measure the skull of an inhabitant of the British Isles and determine whether he was de- scended from the pre-Celtic .primitive, from Celt, from Saxon or Norman. While it cannot be said that this theory is definitely wrong, re- cently accumulated evidence tends to discredit
14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
the more extreme views. Many of the charac- ters regarded as fixed seem to be open to change under the influence of environment. One of the most striking facts in favor of the statements is the well authenticated series of changes in some German emigrants who settled in 1817 among the Georgians near Tim's. Originally fair- haired, blue-eyed, with coarse features, in two generations they have developed dark hair and brown eyes with a "noble oval face. ' ' This was without inter-marriage with the natives. The change is ascribed to climate and general en- vironment alone.2 Boas found a marked change in the cephalic index of Russian Jews and Ital- ians in America in only one generation. The Jews became markedly more dolichocephalic, while the long-headed southern Italians became considerably broader-headed. Why this change should take place Boas does not pretend to say, but it is apparently because of food and en- vironment. As the cephalic index or ratio be- tween length and breadth of the head is m^de the cornerstone of race by many anthropo- metrists it is especially significant that it should prove so variable. Evidence of the change in mental characters is also apparent in the change of status of the immigrant in America and in other cases of widespread race migrations. If
"Keane: "Ethnology," p. 203.
one add the two reasons for skepticism to- gether, it would seem that it is impossible to detect race except by tracing the history of the descent, a history which is lacking in most cases, and if the physical and mental characters change with environment, it would make little contribution to the problem of race could we succeed. Descent has little influence in deter- mining the character of the individual over long periods of time and hence can have little effect upon the nation.
Could one determine the race and did race have all of the significance that has been ascribed to it, we would be little farther ahead in the discussion of the nature of the modern problems of nationality. All of the modern European nations are mongrel, are compounded of numerous elements and many of them are composed of much the same elements in a slight- ly different combination. If we compare the na- tions that were aligned on opposite sides in the great war we find that they had quite as many common elements as those that were fighting to- gether. In each nation wave after wave of con- quering peoples has settled and been absorbed by mixture with the conquered. The original primitives were probably absorbed in the con- quering Celts, affecting only a few of their cus- toms, the Celts in less degree by the Romans,
16 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
themselves a much mixed race, and the more or less Romanized Celts by the Teutons in the west and by the Slavs and Mongols farther west. If one follow Keane 3 in a classification the Eng- lish would be Celto-Teutonic ; the French, Ibero- Celto-Teutonic ; the Italians, Liguro-Celto- Italic; the Russians, Finno-Slavonic. The cen- tral powers would be made up of Germans who are Slavo-Celto-Teutonic, the Prussians, Letto- Teuto-Slavonic, the Austrians would add vari- ous Slav and Mongol elements, the Bulgars and Turks would add new complexes which were as remote from one group as from the other. The ethnic composition of the opposing groups offers no explanation of the alliances. The elements that are mixed are much the same and the pro- portion of the different components does not differ sufficiently to explain the lines followed by the alliances. The nations are not racially pure, nor do they approximate purity. The components were found on each side in the al- liance and approximately as many on one side as on the other. Possibly a few more Celts on the side of the Allies, a larger percentage of Teutons on the other, but in no sense was it a race war. In the determination of national lines in general, race is no more important. There is no pure race in any nation. In the race mix-
* Keane: "Ethnology," p. 201.
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 17
tures that constitute nations, it is not the nu- merical predominance of one racial group which determines the character of the nation. For that we must look to more subtle causes.
The prevailing language of a nation may of- fer a somewhat less uncertain criterion of the racial descent than the physical measurements. One at least can say what the language is and can trace the elements that have entered into its composition in the development of the peo- ples. But language is probably no more ac- curate than physical measurements as an in- dication of the racial components of a nation or of community of spirit of its inhabitants. The language of a nation varies with its racial components, but one can be sure neither of the numerical nor political dominance of the races by the languages. Sometimes the conquering race may impose its language as the Romans did on Gaul when the race contribution was com- paratively slight. Again the conquered persist in their original speech practically unaffected as did the English at the Norman Conquest. Com- munity of language does not mean community of spirit or the reverse. The Irish will not ad- mit that they are English although they speak the tongue nor do the Swiss follow the linguistic boundaries in their feeling of nationality. The German Swiss is as much Swiss as the French,
18 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
the Italian as the German. While the sympa- thies of the communities in the great war seem to have followed the speech of the district in some degree, it was not sufficient to endanger at all the national unity. On the whole it seems that a common language may be either a result of national unity, or it may be a sign of the his- toric development of the peoples. When a na- tional spirit develops as among the Irish, a na- tional language may be fostered to give it strength or serve as a symbol of that unity. In that case it is rather a symbol or effect of that community of spirit than its cause. We must not deny that a common speech is an important element in furthering the national spirit. All that is intended is to assert that it is not a sine qua non, — that language and language alone does not measure and indicate the nationality.
In this brief survey we have developed a for- midable list of negatives. We have found many elements that might and are frequently assumed to furnish a criterion for nationality which obviously are either without influence, have less influence than one is inclined to believe at first sight, or are impossible of application. Physical descent cannot be used as a criterion. For, in the first place, it cannot be traced with accuracy over a sufficiently long period to settle dis- puted points. Where it can be traced in historic
THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY 19
periods we find it does not correspond accurate- ly to the present political boundaries. Large na- tions that have remained in their territory for a long period may change their allegiance. When large numbers of descendants leave the mother country they may or may not carry with them the essentials of their native land. Americans ceased to be English in a few generations, Al- satians ceased to be German in an equally short period. Where individuals move from one coun- try to another they tend to change their al- legiance, and frequently in the second genera^ tion are by no means to be distinguished from the people among whom they live.
Granted that physical descent were a basis for determining nationality, it cannot be discov- ered by other than historic methods. The phys- ical features which might be regarded as mark- ing nations or even races are not sufficiently cer- tain nor sufficiently permanent to be an aid in deciding the question. Historical evidence shows that nearly all races are mongrel, and that where the lines of division can be traced at all the mixtures are not markedly different for any of the countries of Western Europe. An- thropometry cannot solve the problems that his- tory leaves in dispute. Were a commission to be given power to sort the individuals in the Bal- kan Peninsula into ethnic groups and then to as-
20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
sign boundaries and rearrange the population so that all people of similar physical character- istics were in the same communities, it is safe to say that the confusion in the Balkans would be increased rather than diminished, and that the result would not make for the happiness of the individuals. Even the more readily discov- ered speech, while ordinarily following racial lines, is not an absolute guide. It is an indica- tion of the probable allegiance, but neither a necessary cause nor an effect of national spirit. For the final deciding factors, the final ex- planation, one must look not to these physical or fixed mental characteristics and habits but to purely mental qualities, or to mental qualities based upon physical characteristics. The na- tional characteristics are to be discovered not directly but only through the responses of the individual and through the responses that be- tray his emotional and intellectual activities. If you are to know to what national group an in- dividual belongs the simplest way is to ask him, and while his answer cannot always be trusted, but must be interpreted in terms of his general behavior, it is, if he speaks the truth, a better criterion than history, or racial descent, or physical measurements. Nationality is first of all a psychological and sociological problem; only indirectly can it be determined by an- thropometry or even by history.
CHAPTER H
THE NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT— SOCIAL INSTINCTS
To have discovered in the last chapter that the nation cannot be explained from physical laws alone does not free us from attempting to discover what laws do control it. For the psychologist believes that man's so-called men- tal nature is controlled by laws that are quite as assured if somewhat more difficult to discover than the laws of his physical organism. If we cannot believe that a nation originates by the grr.dual accumulation of offspring from com- mon progenitors as a coral island grows, we are not therefore absolved from all attempts to de- termine what the laws are that govern the com- mon action of groups and explain the fact that certain individuals unite into a group, ac- cept as proper the acts and desires of the other members of the group, and refuse adherence to the ideals of other groups. In fact, we must endeavor to learn why, when the groups have been formed, each has many of the aspects of a single individual and acts toward other groups
21
22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
very much as if that were a rival individual. One may reduce many of the acts to common terms and find in these many points in which the nation as a whole resembles the activities of individual animal or man.
In the explanation of the acts of social wholes as of an individual the most striking single fact is the divergence between the motives and forces that the individual himself assigns to his acts and the explanation which seems to the scientist the real explanation. One can place little reliance in the statement that the agent gives of his motives or of the forces that he believes to control him. It is the privilege of the scientist to arrogate to himself omniscience as to the causes that impel the actions of the mass. This may be only for effect and is frequently far from being accepted by the agent or by other scientists as final. At the worst, our knowledge is sufficient to indicate that many of the acts that seem to us simplest are really the effects of changes wrought in the nervous system in some remote period of evolution. It is the duty of the psychologist to trace in every way the present responses to their causes in early formed habits, and in the predispositions of the organism at the birth of the individual. This can be done only by study of the behavior of the individual or of the society under differ-
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 23
ent conditions, and by comparing the action of individuals and societies that have been sub- jected to those different conditions. The results of all of these studies have been combined in a number of different theories of social groups. One theory, which is perhaps most fundamental, would explain the social group as the embodi- ment of instincts. A second finds the closest analogy for the action of a nation, even when the individuals are so numerous and so remote that they may communicate only by the press and through representatives, in the action of a crowd and would ascribe to the crowd certain peculiar qualities that render it different from a mere group of individuals and much different from our ordinary conception of a crowd. A third endows the nation or any social group with a self in addition to the selves of the sep- arate individuals, finds in its action evidence that it thinks, feels, and acts as a unit apart from the thoughts of its component selves. The first theory may be regarded as analytic. It distinguishes different phases of the action of the social unit and finds similarities for each in the action of individual animals and men. The last two are more general analogies, are satis- fied to point out similarities between well known phenomena and the action of the nation, and re-
24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
gard that analogy as an explanation. Each may be discussed in order.
Since Darwin there has been a growing ten- dency to explain the acts of man and of the ani- mals in terms of instinct. This means that most of the acts are made for some reason that can- not be understood by the individual, in the case of man, or by an observer unless one assumes that they are an expression of innate disposi- tions,— dispositions that have survived because they were essential to the existence of the or- ganism. Many of these acts which we call in- stinctive are performed in advance of any op- portunity to learn them, and in certain cases the organism in question would be better off if they did not appear. The infant takes nourishment at the first opportunity and with movements al- most as perfect at first as after frequent prac- tice. The first nest of a robin is as well made as the last, and the beaver needs no practice to cut a tree in the most approved fashion. These in- stinctive movements are evidently not rational as they frequently are performed in every detail under circumstances in which they are of no value. Thus a squirrel will give a perfect imi- tation on a carpet of the actions used in burying a nut, and James cites an instance of a dog that carefully laid down a bone in a room, and after making movements as if scraping dirt over it,
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 25
left it in full sight. Many of the fears of man are absolutely valueless, probably a detriment in the environment in which most of us now live. Fear of snakes in the city dweller or in the North European, fear of the dark, fear of open places, as we find them in certain of the neuroses, have no value in protecting the indi- vidual and no chance to develop through habit. Still they appear in the most unexpected places and in the most rational of men.
One might think of these instincts as inher- ited habits, activities acquired by progenitors which have been transmitted to the present gen- eration. This explanation is accurate save for the method of origin. The modern biologist objects to the assumption of an inheritance of the characters acquired during the life of the individual. Instead he insists that instincts, like all changes in structure, arise through some chance change in the germ plasm, the cell set aside at the first stage in the development of the parent and remaining in the body of the parent unchanged until it begins to develop into the individual in question. This reproduces the general type of the race, but may undergo variations of slight amount in the new individ- ual. No two are quite alike, and occasionally very wide divergencies from type present them- selves. Some of the changes may be due to the
26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
mating of unlike parents, others seem to be owing to chemical changes in the cell, which oc- cur for an unknown reason. When they occur, the changes in structure or the acts induced by these changes may be beneficial and increase the chances for survival of the individual, or they may be harmful and cause him to act in a way that shall result in his death. Thus, if some change in the nervous system cause the new member to like and eat a food that is abundant and nourishing, but which has been instinctively disliked by the race up to that time, the prob- ability of survival will be increased. If, on the contrary, the change produce an appetite for a poison of frequent occurrence in the environ- ment, the individual will be speedily eliminated. Similarly any new instinct of caring for the young will cause the survival of a greater num- ber and so be self -perpetuating. The race that develops that instinct will soon outnumber and may crowd out the others that fail to develop it. An appetite for its own young would result in the elimination of the race in which it ap- peared. One might picture this process of de- velopment of instincts by natural selection as an enormous game of chance in which the stakes are life and death for the individual and in- crease or decrease in numbers for the race. The chance lies in the appearance of the changes in
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 27
the germ plasm, the stakes are won for the race provided the individual lives long enough to propagate his kind, and the degree of success is measured by the number propagated and the number that survive.
Most acts that are essential to the survival of the individual and to the propagation of his kind are instinctive. They cannot be left to learning and so are insured by being established in the nervous system at birth. They have been essential to the life of the ancestors and so have been retained when they appeared by chance. These individual and racial instincts express' themselves in two ways. The simpler are acts which are performed at once when the stimulus or occasion arises. Taking nourishment, sleep and exercise, movements of withdrawal from dangerous stimuli are of this character. The second form is marked out in the rough and is controlled in detail by the feelings. Most in- stinctive movements that serve to approach or retain objects are pleasant; those that consti- tute acts of withdrawal are unpleasant. In the more complicated acts only the pleasantness of attainment of ends that are beneficial and the unpleasantness that attaches to the presence of harmful stimuli give evidence of instinct. The movements are not mechanical, are not pre- scribed, but again may be regarded as chance
28 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
responses, in which pleasure or displeasure de- cides whether they shall be made, or the results accepted or rejected. Thus a chick will peck at any bright object at first and, when it takes into its mouth a bitter tasting worm, will at once reject it. The movement is not discrimi- nating. The final test is the pleasure or dis- pleasure of the taste. A youth selects his mate on the basis of the instinctive pleasure aroused by her features or form; we judge the conse- quences of our acts and plan our future activi- ties in terms of the pleasure or satisfaction they are likely to produce. In general, then, our most important acts are prescribed at first by in- stincts, and all through life the instinctive feel- ings of pleasure or satisfaction and discomfort or dissatisfaction serve to select and guide our movements.
Many of the fundamentals in human nature that make social life possible and agreeable are also instincts. The pleasure in association with others, the responses of features and voice to the looks and remarks of friends constitute the simplest, least active processes. At the other extreme stand the incentives to cooperate, the impulses of self-sacrifice for the social unit upon which depends the formation of nation and state. In this discussion we must distin- guish the cooperative from the antagonistic so-
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 29
cial instincts. The first serve to hold the group together and further the interests of its mem- bers. Opposed to these are the instincts of co- operative defense and aggression, instincts which unite the members of one whole against another for the sake of advancement at the ex- pense of the other. The one makes possible the organization of the peaceful society, the other the organization for war. The second in a meas- ure depends upon the first, but contains ele- ments of self-sacrifice that are not required for it. The one presupposes life together in the ab- sence of hostile tribes, the other is a develop- ment of a life of conflict between rival groups. It is probable that the second may have been the first to develop — that only when there were dangerous rival tribes was it necessary to form a larger social grouping. However this may be, it is certain that at present we can see traces of each. We may begin with a treatment of the cooperative or intra-social instincts or forces and pass on later to the instincts of hate and conflict, the inter-social.
The fundamental instincts upon which co- operation is dependent may be reduced to two ; sympathy for the other individuals, and fear of the social group or of other members of the group. Upon these two develops a system of ideals and social concepts which constitutes the
30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
fabric of the social system. These ideals when fully developed seem to have many of the posi- tive features of law. The instincts of sympathy are among the most definite of the social re- sponses. When one observes the suffering of another one suffers with him in the literal sense of the Greek original. One cannot read of eyes gouged out without a strain of discomfort in one's own eyes. Observation of the effects of hunger or of blows may similarly induce a local- ized pain. The pain or the discomfort is appar- ently an immediate instinct. The localization in one's own body is probably largely due to suggestion. Whatever the neurological connec- tion, the fact is obvious and verified every day. The suffering is very real and can be escaped only by relieving the suffering of the other or forcing one's self to forget it. The former is usually the easier method. This instinct is probably the strongest incentive to charity; it makes charity not an intellectually or morally motived activity merely, but a necessity for the individual's immediate comfort. Its ramifica- tions in the social life are wide ; most unselfish cooperation depends upon it. When strongly aroused it passes over into resentment and be- comes a strong factor in the exercise of the criminal law. The instincts of the second class are more ef-
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 31
fective in keeping discipline within the group. They are the instincts of fear or of respect for the group as a whole or for its members. These vary from the paralyzing effect of youthful bashfulness, through stage fright, to respect for the opinions and feelings of others just because they are expressed or exhibited by others. In its strongest manifestations bashfulness sug- gests a pathological fear. It is most intense in childhood and weakens later to increase in adolescence. Even in the adult, only long prac- tice will enable a man to appear before a large audience with complete composure, and the most experienced are subject to embarrassment when put in a new position or before a strange audience. It appears when reason gives every assurance that there is no danger. In the crowd this fear enables the group to establish its dic- tates against the better judgment of the indi- vidual. He does what others do because he is uncomfortable when he does not, he is in many cases actually afraid to assert his opinions against the crowd. The fear may be overcome by a strong man who is confident that he is right, but the weak man does not assert himself and the strong man yields on points that seem to him relatively non-essential rather than un- dergo the discomfort of self -assertion. This in the crowd assures cooperation and is one of the
32 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
factors that make the crowd approach a unity. It is a powerful agent in the enforce- ment of standards in groups of individuals who are in communication only through the indirect means of the press and hearsay. The individual tends to subordinate his opinion to the social group 's. Why he acts as he does, why he feels uncomfortable when face to face with a crowd, the individual does not know. The instinct ex- presses itself only in the acts and in the feel- ings ; it is not revealed to consciousness in any other way. The actor knows only that he acts, and that he would be uncomfortable if he failed to act as he does.
This fear of the group, or of society as a whole when at a distance, makes possible what is perhaps the most important concrete factor in the development of society and in the develop- ment of the individual as a member of society — the development of ideals and the enforcement of ideals upon the members of a social group. The ideals themselves we may take for granted as the gradual development of a standard of ac- tion or of thinking that has proved valuable for the group. They certainly do not arise from rational considerations. When they do ap- pear, ideals constitute the most essential ele- ment in determining the life of the individual and of the community. Success in attaining
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 33
these ideals gives most of the pleasant emotions, failure to attain them many of the most poig- nant sorrows. In the present state of industry and the use of machine tools the absolute needs for food, clothing, and shelter might be satisfied by working a few hours a day. The rest of the time is devoted to satisfaction of what might be satirized as the "showing off" instinct. No one, of the gentler sex in particular, is content with comfort in clothing; one must have some- thing that shows on the face that it is difficult to procure. As if to make sure that garments are not carried over from year to year, the styles change with frequency, and the most elab- orate gown that bears the marks of an earlier season must be discarded. The current styles emphasize the statement that neither protection nor comfort has much weight in the minds of the designer, or in the thought of the wearer who selects or accepts his product. How little can be made of the development of these standards is evident from the way the styles develop. There is no official dictator, but a changing group of designers who feel that their success depends upon their ability to please the public. The public on the other hand accepts what it believes to be supplied to the best people. Prob- ably the public and the designer both are guided to some slight extent by instinctive apprecia-
tion of beauty, however little beauty there seems to be in many of the styles. More depends upon the prestige of earlier successes, obtained in ways and for reasons that cannot be clearly determined.
Less clearly, but none the less unmistakably, the manner if not the materials of eating is de- termined by these social standards. One eats in places to be seen of men, or if one lives at home, has accessories of the table that shall carry conviction of the social status of the fam- ily. Less obvious are the manners that are ac- quired by or forced upon the children as a sign of descent from a superior stock, minutiae which have no raison d'etre aside from giving the distinction of being different. The size and adornment of the house is chosen rather to im- press and serve as a sign of power or posses- sion than for the comfort of the inmates. Many of the real conveniences are introduced because they are proper rather than because of their ac- cepted utility or hygienic value. All of these features of life derive their vogue from the fact that they are approved by the group. They are a sign of the material success of their pos- sessor, or of his social position. The pleasure that they give is largely derived from the effect that they are supposed to have upon others rather than from their inherent satisfaction.
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 35
The owner does not feel that he is observed of men, nor does he feel that he is strutting with the peacock, but take the element of social ap- proval away and he loses interest in many of his most treasured possessions. Change the na- ture of social approval and the things desired change their character. One can imagine that in a national struggle for life and death when everything was needed to save the nation itself, abstinence might become enough of a virtue to have men rejoice in rags and plain living. In the late war we approached this sufficiently to, appreciate how much the ordinary scale exceeds the level of minimum necessity and sometimes even of the minimum comfort.
These standards are set not only for the creature comforts and material necessities, but for the matters of the spirit as well. What shall be the accepted doctrine in politics, in re- ligion, even in science and philosophy is de- termined from generation to generation, even from year to year, by the social whole. Apart from its truth or philosophy the divine right of kings had a vogue before the French revolution that has been entirely lost since the downfall of Czar and Kaiser. Belief in hell had a long run of popular favor that seems to have pretty well passed at present. The dominance or passing may be in part explained by the experience of a
36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
society of a given age, and may be a reasoned belief for the select few, but for the great mass these fundamental beliefs are almost as much matters of fashion as the cut of a coat. It either is or is not the thing at a given time and in a given circle and is accepted or rejected accord- ingly. Certain men, the leaders, can give a rea- son, if not the reason, for a particular belief; some contrary-minded individuals are spurred to skepticism by the prevalence of any doctrine, but the great majority accept their beliefs from the parson, from the latest book, or from a fash- ionable lecturer just as they take their hats from the best milliner. The attitude might be rationalized by saying "if all the best people accept it, it may be right, at least it saves thought, for after all nobody knows and it is as well to be in good company."
The readiness to accept these ideals and be- liefs from society is probably one of the most important factors in the development of social life in any form. It holds not merely in the smug, best society, but even more strongly for the common people and the dregs. It holds as well for the workingman or man who is disin- clined to work who believes that a socialistic state will provide the utopia, as for the capital- istic believer in protection and large armaments as a specific for all industrial evils. The social-
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 37
1st orator is as ready with his "it is universally agreed" or "all the best minds who have exam- ined the social position of the laborer assure us" as is the orator in Congress. Each is as ready to rest upon the authority of a generally recognized man, and much of the general recog- nition accorded to certain men arises because their opinions suit the many who give them great praise, because they desire to believe their statements. In the last analysis many such statements mean merely that it is good form in my set to accept this opinion. Seldom does any one either in the high or in the low levels of so- ciety attempt to go farther when talking for public effect. When the honest independent thinker does reach conclusions at variance with orthodox or accepted opinion, no matter how thorough his investigation, it is very difficult to have them considered, and it is almost im- possible to convince the masses even when the evidence in their favor is the best possible.
These ideals depend for their existence upon two factors: (1) the existence in the individual of an instinctive respect for the opinion of the whole akin to the fear of the group, and (2) upon a traditional growth of a conventional standard. To accept the opinion or the stand- ard of the group is instinctive, but the opinion or standard itself is not immediately instinc-
38 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
tive ; it is the product of experience, of separate instincts and of the tradition in the society. If one consider the ideals of success of the con- temporary American, one finds that what he strives for are things that appeal to the primal instincts, and are on their material side desired instinctively by all men. The degree and form in which they are desired are determined pri- marily by the conventional standards of each community. Wealth in any of its forms is in some degree instinctively desirable. The horses of the steppes or the buffaloes of the Todas satisfy the instinctive demands by providing food and clothing in addition to being beasts of burden. When the wealthy chief obtains more than he can use they are of prime value as a medium of exchange, may, as with the buf- 'faloes of the Todas, become connected with the religious worship, and in any case obtain their main worth as a sign of the success and con- sequent importance of the possessor. Probably gold and silver and precious stones developed their place in the scale of values in the same way. Satisfying first the instinctive aesthetic desires, their rarity gave them an established status as a medium of exchange. They were first an immediate means to the satisfaction of all needs and, secondly, a symbol of power, They then became conventionalized as a meas-
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 39
lire of the degree of social approval and hence the end of all attainment. When thus estab- lished they are the accepted ideal of the par- ticular group. One never questions why one should strive to attain them. They seem to be an end in themselves.
The standardized ideals of other kinds fol- low the same course. All men are curious. From this develops love of knowledge, from that, in turn, respect for knowledge. From this series of instincts is derived the social respect, so far as it exists, which attaches to the schol- ar's career. In a measure, the appreciation sets up rewards and standards of attainment in po- sitions in connection with learned institutions, memberships in academies abroad and what not, that in a measure atone for the small finan- cial returns. That financial rewards are of the same order as social approval is seen in the lower levels where the girl of superior intelli- gence will take the smaller wage of the depart- ment store rather than the higher of the factory, and either rather than better paid household service. The ideal for attainment in these cases consists in the name of the profession. So- ciety gives greater esteem to the lawyer than to the locomotive engineer of the same earn- ing power, to the physician than to the veteri- narian, to the clergyman than to the riveter.
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These are in part symbolized in the dress. Any calling that permits wearing a white collar and having moderately clean hands seems to stand higher than one which is too dirty or too rough for the better clothing. This may be due partly to the pleasure in the dress, and partly to the fact that the dress is merely an indication of the respect in which the calling is held and of the type of man who seeks to enter it. Certain it is that these ''white collar" callings have a more general esteem; men are willing to submit to longer training in preparation for them and to receive smaller rewards in them than in others of less difficulty and in themselves no more dis- agreeable. Success in none of them is meas- ured by the financial rewards and in some meas- ure they compete with business on this basis. In some of them, the attainment is measured rather by the standing in the profession itself, by the number and value of the books written, by the pictures hung and the prizes received rather than by the financial reward. There is in artistic circles a tendency even to look upon financial rewards as vulgar even though they are never spurned. The reward is convention- alized, but it is a different, perhaps a contradic- tory, ideal from the ordinary monetary reward. When we turn from these standards of ap- preciation to the ideals of conduct we find that
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 41
in general outline the process is the same. In morals the standards have been formulated so definitely that they may be reduced to codes, al- though frequently the actual legal codes are not identical with the standards approved by so- ciety. The incentives to live up to the ideals are approximately the same as for the attain- ment of success, except that more emphasis is put upon the punishment for failure than upon reward for success. The acts interdicted are those that would be harmful to the social whole, and most would, if permitted, render the group less likely to survive. As in the preceding in- stances the standards or ideals are firmly es- tablished, although it is easier to say when they have been departed from than exactly what they are. The moral as distinguished from the re- ligious among the ten commandments are speci- fic, but they are given latitude in interpreta- tion. The less fundamental features of moral behavior are quite as rigidly enforced, although not so clearly formulated. All may be said to be instinctive in their fundamental character, given a particular form or content by conven- tion and tradition, and then enforced by the in- stinctive fear of the dictates of the social group. Ideals for the vaguer relations of states illus- trate the same laws. One may say that all mod- ern states have an ideal of freedom for the in-
42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
dividual. This ideal is somewhat peculiar in that it is in large part a reaction against the older social conventions, but has become estab- lished in its turn through social approval. The content varies from nation to nation in the shade of meaning that is given it, and even from one social group to another. For the allied group of nations the term means in general freedom from interference by the government, and in less degree by social opinion, with the details of the thought and action of the indi- vidual. Even in the different members of the alliance the meaning varies from nation to na- tion. In England freedom of speech in political matters is much more prominent than in any of the others. In the United States we empha- size more right to vote and perhaps the abstract notion of freedom with little practical applica- tion to personal freedom in conduct or in speech that affects matters of established government or general political belief. In France personal freedom is much more in evidence. The Puri- tanical restraints of both England and the United States would be irksome to the French- man. There is probably, too, less or at least a different subordination of the individual to the state where personal pleasure and state inter- ests come into conflict. In all three countries the interpretation of the ideals varies from time
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 43
to time, under the stress of circumstances. Dur- ing the war many of the most cherished features of the American constitution have been put aside by popular consent because they stood in the way of winning, and even the highest courts have found a way to justify their temporary ab- rogation. In all of these countries liberty is re- stricted in its application by the accepted needs, by the conventionally accepted greatest good of the greatest number. In all of these countries rights are tempered by duties. In the Russia of the Bolshevists alone is there complete free- dom, with no restriction by convention. The result is license and, to the distant observer, a condition that resembles the earlier autocracies, with the complete dominance of the physically powerful.
The ideal of personal liberty is very different from the national ideal in either of the Central Powers. There the doctrines of a century have succeeded in reducing the freedom of the indi- vidual to the exaltation of the State. The State is accepted as a real person with the rights and joys of a person and the educated German at least has accepted it, has become content to share the glory of its greatness as a substitute for his own more personal emotions. The less intelligent are bribed by good wages and living conditions to accept an existence with a mini-
44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
mum of personal freedom, aside from the free- dom to gratify his more fundamental instincts in his own way. How far this condition will sur- vive the wreck of the war is still to be seen. What strikes one most forcibly in the rapid changes of the war period is the quickness with which one ideal may supplant another and the completeness with which the material conditions change with change in the ideals. Eussia is made over or destroyed, as one will, by the gen- eral acceptance of an ideal held before the re- volt by a small but noisy minority. France is reborn with the vivifying of an ideal that many had assumed before the war to be accepted only as a form. Whether the well disciplined and conservative German has a latent ideal that shall transform Germany in the same way is still to be seen.
These ideals constantly cross the racial and the individual instincts and may easily be con- fused with them. One frequently speaks of an instinct of cleanliness, but study of different races and the evolution of the small boy show that much of the dislike of cleanliness depends upon social ideals. Imitation has been fre- quently spoken of as an instinct, but it is prob- ably only one form of the socially enforced ac- quiescence in the standards of the community. The forms of the constructive instinct, of the
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 45
acquisitive instinct, of the instinct of curiosity, if not the acts that are ascribed to the instincts, are frequently derived from the social stand- ards or ideals. As opposed to the immediate in- stincts, these ideals obtain only their general content and the incentives and warrant from instinct. Their content comes from learning. As compared with the individual instincts, too, they reveal themselves by feelings rather than by acts. One is guided in the decisions by the emotions that attach to the contemplated act, or by the empirically known results of the act rath- er than by the immediate compulsion of the acts themselves. In effect they are no less strong than the immediate instinct, as is evident from the result when they come into conflict with the individual and racial instincts. Many a sensible woman will give up food or comfort for a gown that will win social approval, and many an am- bitious youth sacrifices health that he may suc- ceed in a profession. The birth-rate is low in the higher classes, for children are incompatible with the best garments, with automobiles and other material signs of social standing.
Of particular importance in all discussions of social psychology, because of the large place that has been assigned to it by Tarde,1 Bald-
1 Tarde : ' ' Laws of Imitation. ' '
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win2 and others is the relation of imitation to the instincts. Tarde and others who make most of it regard imitation as a simple instinct, and assume that any act made by one man will be imitated by others about, just because this act is observed. What observations we have on the simpler forms of imitation indicate that such an instinct does not exist. Imitation seems rather to be the result of a number of instincts and to be closely dependent upon the general social instincts we have been considering. We may distinguish at least three different senses in which the term is used : first, the imitation of simple movements that have not yet been learned ; second, of simple movements that have been learned and made at other times by the individual who is to imitate ; third, complicated acts, purposes, or institutions which are adopt- * ed by one people from another. The experi- mental evidence both in animals and men for the influence of imitation of the first sort is neg- ative. An unknown movement is learned no more quickly when a model is furnished by an- other than when the animal or child is left alone, provided only some incentive for the movement is given. Cats get out of boxes no more quickly, monkeys learn to pull bananas near them with a cane no sooner if they are shown than if they
2 Baldwin: "Social and Ethical Interpretations."
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 47
are left to try by their own efforts. The acts as made by another may provide an incentive to attempt to make them, where that is otherwise lacking. Thus the child learns to speak, ap- parently, because the sound he hears sets a model that he tries to repeat. When that sound comes by chance from his own vocal organs he is interested in it and will repeat it. Even this is not a separate instinct but is only one expression of the instinctive interest in others of his own species which impels him to notice the sounds they make.
The movements which have been learned al- ready will, of course, be repeated when another is observed to make them. This has fundamen- tally the same explanation. The general social instinct leads the actor to observe the movement of other men, and, when that movement is seen, the sensation evokes the movement by what we know as idea-motor action. It should be ob- served, too, that the movement will not be made unless the results appeal to the individual as de- sirable. Whether they shall or shall not be de- sirable is also dependent upon instinct and ex- perience, with social convention as an element in deciding. The same may be said of the third more complicated form of imitation — the adop- tion of styles, of ways of thinking, and of social or legal institutions. Seeing them or knowing
of their existence may suggest the adoption, but whether they shall be finally adopted depends upon who exhibits them, the emotional reaction that they arouse, and their success in practice. In short, imitation in none of these forms is an instinct, but like all other acts it is in part de- pendent upon instincts. At the most it is the expression not of one instinct alone but of many divergent ones. Most of the social instincts, particularly social pressure, combine to induce imitation in each of the senses in which the term had been used. We shall have several occasions to discuss the third form.
The development of social instincts is ex- plained by the same principles as the develop- ment of any instinct. The higher animals sur- vive as groups, packs, or herds, rather than as individuals. The beasts of prey are more effec- tive in the pack than alone, the herd of deer or of cattle is more likely to survive than separate individuals of the same species. Assume two species of wolf in the same region, one with the instinct of hunting in the pack, the other with- out it. The former would survive in greater numbers and the others would in time be elim- inated. Where game is scarce or large animals predominate, the survival of those that hunt in the pack would be more pronounced, the elim- ination of the others more rapid. Similarly,
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 49
where predatory animals abound the non-social Herbivora would quickly be eliminated.
The specific forms of the social instincts are also to be related to survival value. The ten- dency to self-sacrifice would subserve the inter- ests of the species since if the males alone are killed there are always enough to preserve the fertility of the group. Were the herd to scatter on attack, more individuals would perish and they would be the young and the females upon whom survival mainly depends. The instinct of the deer to gather in a circle with the males on the outside, then, favors survival. The social instincts, like the individual and the racial, can be regarded as tendencies or dispositions that have developed by chance and which persist be- cause the individuals in whom they have devel- oped survive while those who fail to develop them are eliminated or survive in smaller num- bers. The fear of the group would tend to make for discipline. In man, at least, one can trace the effects clearly, and possibly in the higher animals one may imagine an instinctive fear of the group that would force the male to the out- side of the herd, as it shames a coward to the attack. The more tender emotions of sympathy seem little if at all in evidence among the ani- mals, although they appear in the lowest men.
In man the social instincts are more impor-
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tant than in any of the animals. Man is less fitted to survive alone, more dependent upon the care of parents at birth, and he alone, apparent- ly, is aided by knowledge and the possession and use of instruments that can be developed only gradually through the course of genera- tions rather than found ready to hand. It can be seen at once that no great numbers of men could survive did they not gather into groups and cooperate for defense against the more powerful beasts and in the pursuit of the ani- mals which provide them with food. The ques- tion has been raised by MacDougall whether we need to assume more than the maternal instinct to explain the social phenomena of sympathy. He asserts that when the family instinct is ex- tended, as it is bound to be, the social instincts are certain to arise. If we accepted the develop- ment of society from the family the extension of the maternal and paternal instincts would nat- urally follow, weakening as we find them to do, with remoteness of relationship. We have seen reason to doubt whether the nation developed quite in this way, whether, at least, the feeling of kinship was not extended so far before the nation developed as practically to cease to exist. We have also reasons to believe that loyalty to the social whole contains some elements that are different in kind from family affection.
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 51
They certainly are more readily developed and transferred, and have no relation to the near- ness in blood. Graham Wallas 3 is probably right in insisting that the social instincts are distinct from the maternal and paternal. Even if they are not distinct in origin they are dis- tinct in application which is all that we need to contend for our present purposes.
All the social instincts must have been effec- tive in developing the primitive communities at a time when the formation of groups of indi- viduals was necessary and not optional. One may assume on the one hand that individuals who spoke the same language or were of the same general physical structure and had com- mon interests might be drawn together from mere gregariousness. They instinctively liked to be near others of the same kind. The ex- change of ideas, if we assume them to have reached the stage of being able to speak and of having ideas, might of itself be sufficiently pleasant to bring them together. However dis- agreeable man in the mass may be when one is in the midst of the mass, there is a hunger for society that approaches the strength of a phys- ical appetite when one has long been alone. The avidity with which the sheep herder on the mountain range hangs on the words of the pass-
3 Graham Wallas: "The Great Society," pp. 146 ff.
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ing stranger, even if he can with difficulty or not at all understand the language, seems due to this gregariousness alone.
More utilitarian, even if no more pressing, is the mutual aid from cooperation. • Even at the stage of the huntsman with no fixed habita- tion, many tasks are possible for the group that are impossible for any individual of the group alone. Large game falls more readily to the group than to the individual, requires more than one for its preparation and transportation, and will supply a small group for as long a time as it will remain edible. As the development proceeds the advantages of working together become more pronounced, and the stages above the simplest agricultural would be impossible without it. Where division of labor becomes the rule, as in all complicated societies, the ad- vantages are obvious. In fact, the modern state could not be approximated did it not exist. "Whether the results for the individuals with the rougher, harder tasks are such as would be willed in cold blood by those members of society were they free to choose and saw all the re- sults of the choice, as compared with the sim- pler, less organized primitive existence, is a question that we have no means of answering. Certainly those who live under the more primi- tive conditions on farms and in simply organ-
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 53
ized villages are moving to the great cities in ever-increasing numbers and few return. Whether the total result for the individual be a gain or a loss, the average individual is bound to desire cooperation and the social group de- velops from the advantages that lead men to draw together.
In the original state the desire for protection, the desire to escape the greater at the expense of the lesser evil, is also strong. As soon as tribes come into conflict, as soon as the range is restricted or game is scarce in a given re- gion, men must voluntarily draw boundaries for the country over which each tribe or each family may hunt. Granted that hostilities re- sult, the tribe must draw together for protec- tion or to wreak vengeance upon the other group. At this stage the impulses of the gentle cohesive type are replaced by the aggressive class. The common affection is replaced in em- phasis by the common hate of the outsider that would eat the grass from his range, or would kill and drive away the deer that have fed in the valley and on the mountain where he has hunted. This common hate or common anger obviously implies increased unity in plans for the destruction of the intruder. The small com- munity appreciates the advantages of the com- mon action as it may never have done before.
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The slight bitterness over the brother or neigh- bor who has offended in some of his own hunt- ing expeditions, who has finished the deer that the individual in question wounded, is forgotten in the greater dislike of the common enemy. The tribe becomes united in spirit as it never has been since the occasion of the last common struggle. Very much of the primitive union of tribes would be traced to this and similar com- mon offensive reactions, the community of spirit of the pack rather than of the defensive reactions of the herd of deer or the mere gre- gariousness of the oxen. All three need to be considered if we are to know why men gather into communities or feel together as nations. To assign the relative importance of each may offer difficulties, but it is a problem that we may keep in mind as we go on.
The development of social ideals is a different problem. In some cases they, too, may have de- veloped by chance and been selected by the sur- vival of the nations in which suitable ones had developed. The respect for ancestors and the consequent ideal of many progeny to worship those now living when they become ancestors, which has developed in China, certainly has been a factor in the survival or great increase in population ; while the ideal of thrift and con- sequent race suicide threatens to depopulate
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 55
France. In other cases, however, selection of the ideal seems to be due to the pleasing result of action in accordance with the ideals, or the instinctive respect for the ideal itself. The uni- versally extended ideal of freedom has little sur- vival value, but does contribute to the enjoy- ment of life in the society that accepts it. The ideal of accumulating goods against a time of misfortune makes both for greater comfort and, originally, was a factor in survival. The greater comfort alone is sufficient reason for its devel- opment and persistence. The failure of some codes of morals that depart from tradition and convention, such as the failure of the numerous free love communities, seems to be due rather to the emotional reaction to the results of the prac- tice when tried than to the elimination of the communities that have tried it. The practice is abandoned before time is given for a test of its survival value. The emotions evoked are themselves instinctive, so that one might say that ideals arise in part from instinct, that the acts which initiate them are instinctive and that in part the emotional reaction which determines whether they shall be accepted or rejected in advance of trial is instinctive.
How the standard actions or the actions which become standard and the theories or beliefs which become ideals should develop at first
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is a different and more difficult question. Some we may explain as we have the origin of in- stincts, as due to chance. Movements are con- stantly being made, some of which are success- ful, and these develop into habits. Of these the better are adopted and taught to the next gen- eration. In the course of time many acts be- come standardized that are of no great superi- ority to others that are rejected. Here belong table manners, methods of pronunciation, and many others that will occur to the reader. They are passed on as signs of class or caste and have value as one element in a complex rather than for themselves. Beliefs and ideals, too, seem to originate at times in much the same way. New theories are constantly occurring to individuals in society. These are propounded to the group, are tested by their instinctive appeal and by their harmony with experience. Some seem promising and are tried in practice and those which prove useful or give pleasant results are accepted. After they have been accepted for a time, they acquire a prestige that makes them difficult to overthrow; man no longer questions them. Even when circumstances change in a way to make the old ideal no longer valuable, it still persists. It is this that makes tradition an incubus on progress at the same time that it gives a conservatism to society which provides
NATION AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIT 57
a necessary stability. After ideals have once been established they may be propagated by the conquest of other peoples by the race in which they have developed, as Greece and Rome im- posed their civilization upon the world. On the contrary, ideals may, by their own inherent strength, survive a conquest, as Rome imposed her language, laws and religion upon her con- querors, and China is said always to have ab- sorbed her conquerors without herself chang- ing. At other times ideals spread as sugges- tions to other peoples through their own worth, or because of the general prestige of the nation in a particular respect. Parisian styles conquer the world now as the political ideals of the French did before and after the Revolution. In some of these instances ideals are imposed and physical conquest is the cause of the accept- ance of the ideals ; in others the ideals are mere- ly suggested and win because of the superiority of their appeal.
As instinctively developed, we may look upon the nation as an outgrowth first of the social instinct which makes the mere presence of other individuals pleasant, the fundamental gregari- ousness that may be regarded as bringing the units together. Further cooperation is imposed by the instinct of sympathy which makes it impossible to see another suffer with comfort to
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one's self. More general in its effect is the in- stinctive respect for the opinions of others, which rises at times to a fear of man in the mass which enforces the ideals of all upon each individual. More important than either, but definitely dependent upon the latter for its exist- ence, are the ideals which each nation has de- veloped— some for all individuals in a group, some for separate classes. These are taken from the society in which one lives. The child accepts the ideals and standards of the family in which he grows up, of the teachers in his school and of the companions in his shop. To a certain extent he may pass upon the adequacy of the standard, particularly when he changes from one environment to another, but for the most part he accepts them without question. This choice is made in terms of the instinctive pleasure or appeal of one or the other, or in terms of the probable benefits as judged from earlier experience. For the most part they are accepted without thought, because of the social forces, the fear of society, and the instinctive discomfort which attaches to its real or im- agined disapproval. This gives the ideals or the standards of the society in which the indi- vidual chances to live the effect of a primitive instinct. The individual thinks of the standard not as a social imposition but as an ultimate
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law; its dictates are the dictates of his con- science, of the proprieties or of good taste. As a result of these instincts and the acceptance of these ideals, the nation is for each individual in it something more than an abstraction, he identifies himself with it as a part of himself, he suffers pain when it is diminished, he re- joices with it as it thrives, it becomes almost as much a center of his emotions as is his self. Assuming as we may and must that every in- dividual is born into the world with a full equip- ment of social instincts, we must still recognize that these instincts are relatively closely limited in their application. It is this limitation that is at work in the development of a national feel- ing. One is bound in virtue of the instinct to act in a certain way toward other individuals of society. One must feel sympathy when they suffer. One must help them when they are in trouble, one subordinates one's self to their de- mands and accepts their ideals without question, or with relatively little question. One may be willing to die to win the approval of the group or to prevent it from being destroyed or from being subjected to undue hardship. What is most striking for us in the whole application of the social instinct to the formation of na- tionality is that the instinct is strictly limited in its expression to the individuals who belong
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to one group, to the group recognized as one's own. A member outside of the group receives the benefit of these instinctive responses in con- stantly diminishing amount as he is farther removed from the immediate circle. When out- side he has no effect upon our opinion, his ideals are ridiculed rather than accepted, he has no influence in restraining our individualistic re- sponses, he receives but a limited sympathy, and, at the extreme, we may rejoice at his suffering and even join with pleasure in in- flicting pain upon him.
It is the fact of the formation of these limited groups within which the social instincts may be applied that is at the basis of the whole prob- lem of nationality. Were the instincts to be limited to the immediate family or were all men without distinction to be included in their appli- cation we would not have this problem. The one word instinct would answer all questions. As it stands, our cooperating impulses extend beyond the immediate family and still do not involve the whole range of humanity. The prob- lem of nationality is primarily one of determin- ing the limits of the instinct. One feels or may feel the social response of friendliness or of helpfulness toward any individual of the ac- cepted group, but what shall constitute the group is settled rather by convention or by cus-
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torn than by instinct. The problem would be simple were the group determined also by in- stinct. If one were born to love one group and to have or to be indifferent to another group, then all that would be needed to decide where to draw the national boundaries would be to dis- cover the limits of application of the in- stinct. If long-headed individuals would with pleasure live with all other long-headed indi- viduals and dislike all broad-headed ones, evi- dently one could, by cranial measurements, form nations that would insure an ideal of fellow- ship. It might be asserted by overzealous ad- vocates of the importance of physical signs of race that the future wars will be between groups who differ by a few degrees in cephalic index. Or were the common heredity to determine the reactions and responses, one need but to deter- mine the degree of kinship to divide and sub- divide the human species into appropriate groups and classes. As has been seen, the real lines of division do not follow along the same lines as physical differences, and slight obser- vation even of one's own likes and dislikes show that nearness in kin provides no criterion of community of spirit.
As the matter stands, one must admit that, while man is endowed with many social instincts the range of application of the instincts is rela-
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lively little determined, may in fact be regarded as undetermined. The decision as to who shall be regarded as coming within and who as stand- ing without the field of its application consti- tutes the real problem and this seems to depend more upon the conditions of the life of the in- dividual, upon habit and training, than upon in- stinct. In practice this means that one may select whom one will to constitute one's com- munity, or at least that the limits of one 's com- munity are not drawn by inheritance or by evo- lution. If one is to solve the problems of nation- ality one must study the conditions that deter- mine the particular groupings of individuals as well as the general fact that all men desire to live together and are forced to cooperate with each other by their inherited dispositions which not only make another course impossible but make the only alternative pleasant.
CHAPTER III
HATE AS A SOCIAL FOECE
WE have been emphasizing in the last chapter the kindly, sympathetic instincts that hold so- ciety together, that further cooperation and promote all of the gentler virtues. But there is another side. Society originated in conflict and one of the strong incentives to the develop- ment of a primitive society was protection against other tribes, and, on occasion, aggres- sion against others. This meant that instincts and emotions must develop in the individual which would insure his taking part in any con- flict that was necessary to the survival of the group to which he belonged. These emotions are not different from those aroused by the individ- uals with whom he comes in contact, but they are intensified if not extended by the other mem- bers of the group. If the instincts have devel- oped through their value for survival it would be the instincts that were dominant during periods of stress that would appear and persist through the survival of the animals who show them. Only dangers from without need drive
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the herd together, only acts of aggression would require the pack to gather. The emotions and instincts appropriate to these situations are anger and hate, the anger that steels for resist- ance and nerves for the attack.
If one took as one's thesis that societies are formed through opposition to outside forces, one might find an analogy from studies which were made by Jennings of the tendencies of a unicellular organism that he studied, the para- mecium, to gather into groups. The paramecium lives in colonies which may be transferred to the slide and studied under a microscope. The animal is a single shuttle-shaped cell that moves by the strokes of a row of ciliae, small hair-like processes which grow on two sides. At first sight the paramecia seem to be of a marked social disposition. No matter how scattered they may be they soon all assemble in one small group. Were they men we would incline to ex- plain this by saying that they liked each other's society or that they had a social instinct, at least the instinct of gregariousness. Careful study of their movements and of the way they gather indicates that the process is very much more mechanical. In the first place, the only re- action that they show is a negative one. When certain stimuli affect them they will reverse the movements of the cilise and move away from it.
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They make no response whatever when the stim- ulus is what we would call pleasant. It is this same negative refaction that causes them to come together. They always attempt to avoid an alkaline solution, or to avoid going from a mildly acid medium to one that is more alkaline. About each small group of cells there develops a solution of carbon dioxide, from the respira- tion of the group. Whenever a member of the group swims to the limit of this acid, it makes a sudden reversal movement of the cilise, a series of back-strokes that makes it return to the more acid medium. When one from outside the group chances to swim into the acid me- dium, it is imprisoned, for when it approaches the boundary the back-stroke is induced and again it is forced to turn and swim back. Soon all are trapped in the small area of acidulated water. In short, what seems to be a fondness for other's society proves in the paramecium to be merely a mechanical impossibility of es- caping from the water about the group that has been made acid by the excreted carbonic acid of the group. If we generalize this, it would mean that society develops not from a liking for society but from a dislike of the surround- ing medium. That which drives the individuals together is the dislike of the outside forces
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rather than any fondness for the company of which they are members.
As we turn to the most developed stage, we can find instances and phenomena in the human organization and forms of human emotion which indicate that many of our human acts, some even of those that seem most worthy, are the outcome of hate rather than of love and the more positive altruistic sentiments to which they are sometimes ascribed. Were one to take a militaristic view of the world it would be pos- sible to argue that it is hate of the opposition that furnishes all of the real incentives of life, that if war and hating were to stop, all prog- ress would stop and we would drop down to a monotonous stage of little endeavor. All prog- ress, on this view, has been derived from con- flict, and when conflict ceases there will be little incentive to endeavor. One need not go so far as this to see that the emotion of hate and the instincts of opposition are important, and that it is hard to exaggerate the part which they play in the control of modern life, even if one should attempt to avoid special pleading. I remember hearing a distinguished scientist, a resident of an eastern city, say at the beginning of the war in 1914 that he had never before known the joys of unrestrained hate, particu- larly of unrestrained hate in unison with others.
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He added that he thought he had known some- thing of it in his hatred for the members of cer- tain old and prominent families of his commun- ity for whom he had great contempt, but that that was nothing in comparison with the grati- fication which came with the joys of the newer and freer emotion. This is probably an avowal that few would be honest enough to make, if true, and probably that few feel in such an in- tense degree, still it is not so far removed from the general attitude, as the mildest of us would like to believe.
We can see the effects in the individual reac- tions to war and the choice of sides or at least the distribution of sympathies in America when the European war broke out and before we were engaged. In many cases that came under my observation, the alignment was determined by resentment against one side or the other rather than by fondness for the side favored. One, a Russian who had been exiled, and who had spent most of his life in America with study in Ger- many for one or two periods of a year or so each, felt first a bitter hatred of Russia that aligned him against the Allies ; then, when Bel- gium was invaded and England came in, his hatred of the German began and continued. This grew stronger when we entered the war. Another man, a Swiss, hated Germany and
found his sympathies with France and Russia until England came in, when his dislike for Eng- land, much stronger than for Germany, drove him back to a neutral position; as he put it 'then, he did not care much so long as Switzer- land could remain neutral.
In the attitude of the native American to the war, one was struck by the vastly greater effect of hate and resentment against the cruelty of the German than of sympathy with the victims. If we divide Americans into the two groups: those who knew enough of European politics to follow the war intelligently and the great mass who heard of the conflict as one might of an eruption in Java or in Mars, we can see the effect in the same form but different degrees. The first felt a rush of horror at the fact of war at all and then anger or indignation at the in- dividuals and nations that started it, that brought them definitely to take sides for one or the other of the contestants. It would be fair to say that, at the beginning, sentiment in this class was fairly evenly divided. Many of the group were familiar with both sides; some of the more highly educated had studied in Ger- many, others were German by birth or descent or had come under the influence of the extended preaching of German ideals that had been so extensive in the preceding decade. There were
69
certainly as many admirers of Germany as of England. The affliations as determined by sym- pataies in the preceding wars were either neu- tral or were opposed to the Entente. Opinion was Lostile to England in the Boer war and had been on the whole bitter. There were few Amer- icans cf this class who would not have been glad to see the British whipped at that time. This was probably more than enough to overcome the effect produced by England's action at Man- illa in the Spanish war, particularly as English* men as a whole had been inclined to side with Spain during that war. Sentiment in America had always been hostile to Russia because of her form of government and the tales of pun- ishment inflicted on political prisoners — an at- titude that had been intensified by sympathy with Japan during the Russo-Japanese war. Between France and Germany they would have been neutral, as the outcome of the war of 1871 had generally been regarded as deserved. On the whole, sentiment was quite as friendly to- wards Germany as towards the entente when the war began in 1914, but it developed rapidly against Germany, really against Germany and not in favor of the Entente. This began with the note of the Chancellor von Bethmann- Hollweg, in which he referred to the Belgian treaty as a scrap of paper, grew with the vari-
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ous atrocities in Belgium and reached a climax with the sinking of the Lusitania. If one will re-read the speeches and letters to the papers, not to mention the editorials that demanded that we enter the war, one will see that the emphasis is always upon the punisliment of the guilty, seldom that we should save the afflicted. With the less educated the process was much longer, but followed about the same course. The first effect was slight in many parts of the country. Sympathy, if there was any, was in favor of the Entente, or at least against Ger- many. Where German propaganda had been active opinion was nearly evenly divided ; where only the American newspapers were responsi- ble for the information, the Entente was fa- vored. In any case interest was not so vitally aroused as would seem necessary as one looks back upon it. The great mass was opposed to intervention, where the question had been raised at all. It was believed that it was not our quarrel. Some even tried to shut out all knowledge of the war on account of the suf- fering they were caused in sympathy. This attitude was sufficient, when sympathy for the Allies increased, to induce many to echo the arguments of German propagandists, rather as an excuse for our remaining neutral than from any fondness for Germany. Their neutrality
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was overcome by increasing knowledge of Ger- man atrocities. Her acts in Belgium were suffi- cient for some to change toleration into hate; the sinking of the Lusitania and the attacks of the submarines on American ships and the cold blooded ferocity of the German warfare in gen- eral brought the nation gradually to the culmi- nation of hate, with the feeling that war was our duty.
In the whole experience, one is struck by the great predominance of hate and anger over sympathy. The Belgian refugees aroused sym- pathy, of course, and the great mass were sorry for the victims of the war on all sides, but pun- ishment and vengeance were the active forces in bringing us into the war. The eye was kept first upon the harm that could be done to the German — the prevention of suffering was in- cidental. One may have a fair monetary meas- ure of the two influences in comparing the con- tributions for relief with the expenses for war. We were proud of the amounts that were col- lected for Belgian relief, for French orphans, and for the other victims of the war in minor states, but these, large in the aggregate, amounted to less than a dollar per person, and were nothing compared with the billions that were readily spent in preparing for war, in expressing hate rather than sympathy. To be
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sure, expenditures by private individuals are always more modest and more reluctantly made than are expenditures by the state. But even this is not sufficient to explain the entire dif- ference, the thousand-fold increase in the wealth poured out for war as compared with the few millions per year that were given for relief of suffering.
Many other lessons of the war indicate the dominance of hate and anger, or the active un- pleasant emotions or instincts, over fear and the passive unpleasant instincts or emotions. The Germans, as is well known, advocated the doctrine of frightfulness even in the manual that they prepared to direct the acts of their commanders in the field. This is based upon the assumption that a people if sufficiently abused, if treated with the greatest atrocity, will be cowed and give in and sue for peace. The psychology is that accepted by some ani- mal trainers towards an animal, that you can by pain and suffering break him and prepare him to do what you will. All the experiences of the war showed that this is a mistaken psy- chology. Instead of causing fear such acts always caused hatred and anger; instead of breaking the temper of the people they angered and nerved them to renewed effort.
If we run through the list of illegal acts, we
HATE AS A SOCIAL FORCE 73
find no single one that really paid. The fright- fulness in Belgium, perhaps, came nearest it. Kellogg1 asserts that the Germans boasted that one man captured Charleville in France as a result of the stories of the way the Belgians had been treated. Even this effect was but local. While the men in the immediate neigh- borhood of the advancing Germans fled and left the cities deserted, the men out of reach rallied to the colors. It may have had an ef- fect in reducing the number of franc-tireurs, but it increased very greatly the number of sol- diers in uniform, and strengthened the resist- ance of the conscripts. The Belgians and the French of the occupied region may have offered less overt resistance at the time, but the secret resistance was increased ten-fold. It might be said that this was only annoying and had no effect upon the outcome of the war, while if the Germans had been compelled to keep an army corps in Belgium it would have cost them the war, but this seems a marked exaggeration. All of the Belgians left could not have done very much by irregular warfare, and showed no great inclination to such illegal acts ; if they had, very few men would have been necessary to deal with them. The exciting effect of the
'Vernon Kellogg: "The Capture of Charleville": Atlantic Monthly, vol. 122, p. 289.
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atrocities and the letters of Cardinal Mercier, among others concerning them, served to arouse the Belgians and all others of the Allies as they would never have been had the Germans re- spected the laws of war as generally recog- nized.
Each of the other violations of the rules of humanity had the same effect. Bombarding open towns and air raids in which non-combat- ants were killed were said to be the greatest stimuli to recruiting in Great Britain in the days before conscription was introduced. Later the murder of Captain Fryatt and the drown- ing of the crews of the vessels sunk by the U-boats had no effect in preventing the ordi- nary sailor from going to sea; they merely an- gered him and spurred him to greater effort in ramming or in otherwise attacking the U- boat. The execution of Miss Cavell, together with the others mentioned above, had a marked influence on neutral opinion, and these with the sinking of neutral ships, probably, by bringing in the United States, were the final forces in losing the war for Germany.
Certainly the war as a whole constitutes a definite refutation of the German doctrine of frightfulness. The Germans entirely mistook the psychology of the human race at large. Frightfulness arouses not fear, but hate. It
HATE AS A SOCIAL FORCE 75
does not break the will of the victim, but merely spurs to new effort to obtain vengeance. If the German had been even as humane in the con- duct of the war as the Turk, when not indulging in religious prosecution, the outcome might have been different. As, it is, she is paying in harsh treaty terms for the indignation she aroused as well as making restoration in kind, so far as that is possible, for the damage that she actually inflicted. Whether this will arouse the Germans in turn or will be accepted as just retribution is still to be seen. It is possible but not probable that the Germans were correct as to the effect of frightfulness on themselves al- though mistaken as to the rest of the world.
It would not require any overemphasis of the facts to argue that even religious organiza- tions and religious creeds have been developed more from dislike of the opposing belief, of the men who hold them, or of their practices, re- ligious or personal, than from any consuming belief in the doctrine that was accepted. The history of the various heresies and heterodoxies of the early church is one of quarrels over non- essentials, usually of quarrels whose real occa- sion was not the one mentioned, but some dis- agreement on personal points, or on racial dis- likes. The early controversies turned on points too slight to be apparent to any but the most
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hair-splitting mind. So trifling were the differ- ences that one cannot believe that the disputes were more than a symbol of the real difficulties, probably rooted in class or racial controversy. Certainly the bonds that held together the op- posing parties were not the fondness for the timeless or the temporal explanation of the re- lation of father and son. They can hardly have been an intellectual repugnance for the oppos- ing doctrine ; rather must we find them in some deep-seated personal or class antagonism be- tween the individuals concerned. We have more knowledge of the Great Keformation of Luther and his fellows and here can trace the profound hatred for the immoral life and grasping finan- cial system of the older clergy on the part of the reformers and their flocks. The theological issues of transubstantiation and similar ques- tions were but incidental to the personal and financial.
That hate of the opposing groups rather than affection for the principles and love for the per- sons of the groups accepted is an important element in the development of the religious sect or community is evidenced by the ferocity with which heretics were dealt with in ancient times, persisting until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Why an innocent woman should be burned for doubting that the communion bread
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was part of the very body of Christ, or a scholar for believing that it was his privilege to think for himself in ways prescribed by the brain and mind with which he had been created, can- not be explained from affection either for the creed or for the organization. If these forces are the first occasion for the combination they are quickly replaced by the much fiercer emo- tion or instinct, the hatred of those without. Ee- ligious organizations flourish just so long as there is definite opposition ; when the opponents vanish, the vigor of the group lessens and may disappear. Even to-day, the active organiza- tions are those with a personal devil who may be hated, and forces of evil that may be given definite embodiment. The evangelist and the Salvation Army orator have the widest appeal when they preach against definite and if possi- ble personal opponents rather than when they preach the beauties of resignation and the joys of fellowship. As religion has become more universal, and the differences in doctrine have become fewer, particularly since the principle of toleration of religious belief has been gen- erally accepted, religious enthusiasm has less- ened. A vigorous heresy seems important if not essential to the persistence of a strong faith. When the devil was a real person he was an important aid to religious organization. The
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impersonal evil or sin, or the universal evil in our own desires, is not a satisfactory substi- tute.
Nor is this influence of a common hate in uniting individuals in large masses confined to hates between definitely organized groups. In the relations between individuals in every day social intercourse one may trace the same feel- ing. Dislike of the mass holds many a small clique together, and plays a not unimportant part in the development of the universal sys- tem of social levels. Political parties, schools of thought in science and philosophy, and even in religion, are certainly guided by contempt for the members of the opposite party quite as much as nations. At times, to be sure, the dis- like may start from the thwarting of one 's own desires. The populist movement and the free trade movement soon ceased to be mere matters of political theory and became resentment for injuries feared or actually suffered at the hands of a supposed conspiracy of the rich. The an- swer of the conservative parties is again not so much that the system defended is good for the laborer or the farmer, but that the pauper labor of Europe will, if not prevented, steal the mar- kets and force our citizens into bondage. In the same way, the favorite answer to the social- ist is an appeal to the man who has little that
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that little may not be taken from him by the man who has nothing. Dislike for great wealth is met by preaching hatred against the multi- tude pictured as marauders rather than as men- dicants. In either case, appeals to self-interest are overshadowed in effectiveness by appeals to hates.
In the field of charity and criminology the same instincts are prominent. A cynic might well argue that most charity develops from hatred of somebody or of something. Many bequests for charity or education are made not from any particular love of the institution bene- fited but from hatred of the heirs who might otherwise obtain the money. What proportion this is one could learn only from revelations of trustees and of witnesses. Many of the char- ity workers themselves start from a desire to help the victims of poverty and misfortune, but end with hatred of the system or the individuals that are responsible for the existence of the condition. When this hating or fighting atti- tude is aroused, the worker doubles his effi- ciency. The whole relation of the criminal to society and of society to the criminal revolves around the emotion of hate. The criminal is likely to be guilty of his first offense under the influence of a sudden resentment. Once he has been convicted he becomes an object of fear
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and distrust that leaves him no alternative but to hate society, and there are no means of liveli- hood that are not at its expense. He may see the error of his ways and long for the oppor- tunity to reform, but as long as society is sus- picious and, as he believes, unfair, he cannot avoid hating nor the actions that result. So- ciety cannot escape the suspicion based on a knowledge of the strength of habit as long as the man is assigned to the class of the profes- sional criminal. The exceptional man may rise to the heights of pitying or even of admiring the man who attempts to reform, but this seems hopeless for society as a whole, while it is ruled by the theories accepted at present and these are rooted in the instinct of mankind to hate all who are likely to be dangerous.
The socialist in particular has developed to the full the principle that you can arouse people by appealing to hate and anger, where you leave them untouched by appeals to sympathy or co- operation. The foreign language and other radical newspapers are filled with denunciations of capital and capitalists who have fattened on the suffering of the toiler for all the ages. The call to unitary action for the good of the laborer appears at times, but that receives less space than the call to fight, the cry of hate. Even the opposition to war that they preach is not an
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altruistic or sympathetic one ; it is not that war is a source of suffering that disturbs them, but that it is an instrument of the capitalistic class, devised to keep the laborer in subjection by killing some and reducing the others by taxa- tion. Meantime, they argue, the excitement will distract the laborer from his sufferings, will make him forget his own interests in the emo- tions of patriotism.
In the development of nations hate is highly important. A writer,2 sympathetic to the con- federacy, brings out very clearly the influence of hate in the development of the attempted secession. The Southern States were united primarily against what they regarded as the aggression of the North. Their primary objec- tion was to the interference with their institu- tions and personal freedom, but there were no common ideals which hdld them together. When the secession had been effected, even in the midst of the conflict when common action usually serves to unite a group, they became conscious of the differences between them, and these seemed to many too important to be neg- lected even to win the war they were actually engaged in. Those who favored slavery as an institution came into conflict with those who re-
1 N. W. Stephenson : ' ' The Confederacy, Fifty Years After. ' ' Atlantic Monthly, vol. 123, p. 750.
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garded it merely as a symbol of Southern inde- pendence, and these with the consistent uphold- ers of the doctrine of States Eights. The one group was not willing to abandon slavery nor to arm the slaves with promise of freedom if they won ; the others were not inclined to accept a strong central government, however essen- tial that might be to coordinated effort. The confederacy came near splitting on these points on numerous occasions, because they seemed al- most if not quite as important as did the main controversy with the North. The lesser hates grew almost to equal the greater ; and there was no common constructive ideal strong enough to unite them firmly and there were too many minor differences to drive them apart. Had the Confederacy been victorious in that war it would undoubtedly have gone to pieces soon on other issues, unless, of course, fear and hatred of outside forces had been sufficient to unite it.
We can see the same tendencies in the de- velopment of alliances of nations through treaties. Lichnowsky3 has said that nations only make treaties of alliance against some other nation or group, never merely for the mu- tual benefit through cooperation of the nations
•Lichnowsky: "The Future of Germany." "Die neue Bun- echau"; Tr. Littell's Living Age, vol. 301, 1919, p. 580.
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that combine. He made the statement in warn- ing against a treaty of alliance of Germany with Russia, on the ground that it would be assumed to be and would really be a combination against England and would be provocative of future wars. The implication can be readily justified by a study of the treaties that have maintained the "balance of power" in Europe in the last century. Whenever one nation is strong enough to threaten others, alliances are formed against her; when she loses her position and another comes up, the alliance shifts to have another group ready to counter her possible attacks. The dread of Napoleon united Europe against France. Fear of Eussia followed, a fear that even brought England to support the Turk and kept him in Europe for half a century after he would naturally have been expelled. As Germany became strong and began to preach her doctrine of war for aggression, England and Eussia came together and the Turk found a champion in the Triple Alliance. The al- liances are always against a common danger and that fact brings many strange partner- ships.
Similarly a common hate is one of the most frequently effective factors in making or uniting a nation. The United States was made by anger at Great Britain, or more truly at a
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king and his ministers, Italy by hatred of Aus- tria and the Pope, Germany by the hatred of Napoleonic rule. Bismarck consciously made use of wars and the hates that wars engender to remake the German Empire. The league of the Balkan nations was the outcome of a com- mon hate, a hate that ceased to be common al- most before the war was won, with a consequent new direction of hate and war between the earlier allies. In the Great War, as in all wars, it was primarily hate or fear rather than pros- pect of gain or mutual sympathy or admiration that bound the allies together. Barring Ger- many and possibly Eoumania and Italy, no country seems to have had any notion of gain in entering the strife, and even Italy was gov- erned in some part by her traditional hatred of Austria and of modern German methods and of individual Germans who came as tourists and business men. Austria was moved by hatred of Serbia and fear of Germany, Ger- many in part by fear of the Eussia that she thought was to be, France by fear and by the hatred left from the earlier war. Both France and Eussia were given the final impetus by the insulting ultimatum of Germany, while the peo- ple and probably the government of Great Brit- ain were stirred to the point of war by the anger aroused by the invasion of Belgium.
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These hates are not fixed but fluctuate in in- tensity from moment to moment in very much the same way, certainly quite as quickly, as do likes and also with as little apparent reason. Ee-alignments on the basis of hates can be traced in national as in intra-national groups. The change of partners in the last Balkan war furnishes one of the best instances of the for- mer. The split between Greece and Servia on the one side and Bulgaria on the other could be seen to grow from the moment Greece captured Salonica. It was carefully repressed until peace was made or was on the point of being made with Turkey and then suddenly flamed out in the war that enabled Turkey to regain a considerable portion of her losses and estab- lished the enmities that have determined the alignments of the Balkan states in the present conflicts. Still more striking is the conflict of hates in Eussia that so profoundly changed the whole aspect of the war on both fronts. Here the conflict of dislikes is between the internal and the external. The Eussian peasant or arti- san may dislike the German, but this paled into insignificance beside his hatred of the wealthy and of the system that enables differences in social and industrial condition to exist.
The utility of combinations through hate and the vigorous common action induced by it are
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obvious from the evolutionary considerations. Societies are primarily means of defense against outside agencies. They apparently sur- vive as units in the original savage state and both the organizations and the hates are an ex- pression of the needs of survival. If hate, then, is an instinctive response against an injury or a threatened injury, cooperation of the indi- viduals subject to injury is an effective if not an essential agent in common defense. Unlike the lower animals, in whom the response is aroused only by direct stimulation by pain after the injury, man undergoes the emotion when he hears of injury or has reason to believe that injury is to be suffered. His sufferings are largely mental and his responses are to im- agined or foreseen injuries rather than to real injuries. On the whole this prevents the actual harm, but in the highly organized civilization with its overkeen imagination and openness to suggestion it may cause as much mental an- guish as it prevents of bodily injury. In no few cases it generates unnecessary wars, wars on suspicion of injuries that are not intended. One nation becomes suspicious of evil intent in another, and prepares to meet the assumed danger. The second sees the preparations, as- sumes that some offense is intended against it on the initiative of the other nation, and begins
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its own preparations. Each suspicion breeds new suspicions, each preparation new prepara- tions, until what starts as a protective measure, becomes an actual cause of the act that was dreaded. The instinct that was an instrument of advancement and even a necessity for the survival of the original primitive society has become in the complex modern civilization one, and probably the most important, of the agen- cies of destruction. Although it must be granted that once a nation becomes the victim of a war of aggression hate is still the most important factor in national defense.
One might question whether, if hate is an important element in making possible the de- velopment of a nation or a feeling of national- ity, there is chance for a disappearance of the unpleasant group of emotions without corre- sponding loss of national feeling or effective cooperation — whether one must choose between the era of good feeling and a loss of all the virile if not vital forces. We may turn back to our original analogy with the paramecium. While the group was held together at first by a dislike of the outside medium it was found that as the group kept together the area impreg- nated with C02 gradually extended until it filled the entire microscope slide. Then the bond was broken and the members could go anywhere.
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If man is similar we might expect that as the different groups increased in size by the ab- sorption of new races, a process that has gone far already, we might hope to find in time that all nations would amalgamate into one so far as common emotion goes and leave no one out- side to hate. This condition is in sight if the League of Nations succeeds.
When we are studying the forces in man's nature that are important for the development of society we must not forget the warlike emo- tions of hatred and anger. Human association was born of conflict and the instincts made nec- essary by conflict were the most certain to de- velop and survive. Even the gentlest, most al- truistic emotion has its harsh side. Pity or sympathy is always likely to be linked with hatred of the person responsible for the situa- tion that appeals to one's sympathy, and on the whole the reaction against the offender is stronger and more immediate than that which would remove the pain. An appeal to hate is always more effective in an argument than any other. The Bolshevist mob robs and murders the rich or the relatively rich before it con- siders means that shall prevent suffering by the poor or the workman. The socialist, in the street corner orator form, at least, is perfectly ready to overthrow and destroy before he has
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carefully worked out a plan for rebuilding. In one's own reaction to political events and in the pages of history one sees hatred and love mingled in the reactions of the individual and of society. This tendency means that nation- ality thrives on opposition, that any attempt to crush nationality results in its increase or a new birth. This statement is illustrated by every attempt that has been made in history to discourage or destroy nationality by force or by law. A nation is strongest when fighting, whether on the offensive or the defensive. Na- tionality is a two-fold sentiment, of helpfulness towards all within the group and of distrust of all that is without. While it is not true that had there been no war or if wars were to cease there would be no nationality, it is certain that coherence is emphasized when there is opposi- tion.
CHAPTER IV
NATIONALITY IN HISTOEY
WE have seen reason to believe that nation- ality is fundamentally an expression of the so- cial instincts modified and elaborated by habit and learning, which, in turn, come to constitute tradition and custom. As phases of the social instinct we distinguished the liking for the mere presence of fellow men, whether friend or not, the instinct that brings men together; sym- pathy, the suffering that comes with knowledge that another is suffering, which impels to much of effective cooperation, and finally, fear of others which enforces upon the individual re- spect for the opinions and conventions of the group. Upon the basis of these instincts, which may be called the immutable laws of human na- ture, ideals and standards develop and come to have the force of laws. The instincts cannot be changed but the ideals have arisen in the course of human association and may change with conditions and the progress of knowledge. They may arise through the chance suggestion
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of some thinker, but are tested by experience, and are transmitted by tradition. Because of the instinctive respect for the opinions of others, they have, when once established, almost absolute power and they are often mistaken for instincts because of their universal acceptance.
Before we go farther in the discussion of theories we may to advantage consider how these principles and ideals have developed and how the national allegiance may change at the present time. These changes and developments affect only the ideals or standards ; the instincts we must regard as the same everywhere. From these studies we may secure suggestions of other laws and can at least obtain a body of facts which may be used to test theoretical con- clusions. Within our limits we can do no more than find instances of the way in which nations have developed, so far as it can be determined from readily available material. A complete treatment would require volumes.
Where and when the first nation developed we do not know. The same laws, working at different places, must have brought men to- gether into societies very early, certainly before recorded history begins. Nowhere do we find at present a people so primitive that there is not some approach to a national organization, or at least to some wider than the family, and
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from no time in the past, aside from the doubt- ful records of the Bible and the myths of the Greeks do we have evidence of a merely family organization. There are remnants of the tribal elements in the early records of all nations, in the early law and tradition of the Norseman, in the traditions of Greece, as well as in the records of the Old Testament, but they are rem- nants of an earlier stage and exist side by side with other forms of organization. We can nevertheless trace the principles by which wider national units were formed out of smaller, and the principles which guided the develop- ment of nations out of fragments left over from decaying or disintegrating groups.
The Jew from the earliest day to this has had a distinct notion of nationality, marked by pride in his institutions and in his history and his heroes of ancient times, in his accomplish- ments and in his laws which still persists as pride of race since his dispersion over the surface of the earth. In the biblical times it was thoroughly tinged with religion. One of the national perquisites of the Jew was to walk and talk with God, part of his pride was in hav- ing a just God as almost his peculiar privilege. As in many other cases it is difficult to deter- mine whether nation or religion comes first. Sometimes one obtains the impression that God
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was great because he was the God of the Jews rather than that the Jews were a marked and peculiar people because of the closeness of their relation to God. If one were to trace the feel- ing to its origins, it is probable that one would find that God had grown into the affection and respect of the race because He was the God of the ancestors, because of His connection with the triumphs of ancient Israel, and because He served as a convenient means of formulating and personifying the ideals and standards of the race. Keligion and race were closely con- nected. On a relatively small scale the Jews had a nation, something for which they would sacrifice themselves, and which was superior in its appeal even to the family relationship, although there was always in it something of the tribal or family element.
The development of nationality among the Greeks is none the less clear in spite of the fact that it takes a different form and develops dif- ferent ideals, or perhaps embodies its ideals in different materials. We may trace in the literature the development from the tribal or- ganization of the Homeric age, through the city state of Athens or Sparta, to the empire under Alexander. We can trace the abandonment of private vengeance in favor of a law of the state, we can trace the development of a willingness
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to fight for the nation as a whole rather than for the individual or the tribe. The national ideals take a different form in Greece from that which they had in Israel. There is more of unity of the individuals themselves, a sense of the strength of an organization as self-depend- ent, as opposed to the reliance upon a king or a priest. The ideals of the Athenians stand out most clearly in the funeral oration of Peri- cles. They were, first, pride in the attainments of their ancestors; second, pride in the justice of the laws and the dependence of the nation upon the intelligence and virtue of the citizens and the willingness of each to sacrifice himself for the whole, and, finally, pride in the beauty and wealth of the city itself and in the oppor- tunities tht.t it offered for pleasure and profit. The Greeks also made less of their religion. The gods were numerous enough to permit them to be measured by human standards — if they failed to measure up to the ideals, they might be discarded. Justice and the other ideals were not altogether personified in the gods but ex- isted independently as ideals in the minds and hearts of the people. The Greeks in this sense had passed from religion to philosophy, from personification to abstraction. One form has the same effect as the other, they are but dif-
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ferent expressions of the same fundamental principle.1
We can see clearly, too, in the Greek world the expression of the different allegiances with their balanced loves and hates, their tendencies to combinations of different sizes and on differ- ent principles. In Sparta and Athens at their prime there seems to be little within the city state that conflicts with the allegiance to the group as a whole. There is some division along the lines of wealth or occupation. The dweller on the land at times felt drawn to others who made their livelihood in the same way, and at times we can detect opposition developing be- tween the dweller in the city and the dweller by the shore. On the whole there was probably less of class interest and fewer lines of division into smaller groups than we find in the modern nation. Even the family affiliations were care- fully subordinated in Sparta, and in Athens the tribe seems to have been intentionally and suc- cessfully replaced by the national interests. The wider allegiance among the Greeks as a whole fluctuated greatly. There seems to have been a feeling of solidarity with other Greeks as opposed to the barbarians, but only at times of great danger did this become pronounced enough to lead to effective combination. It was
1 Zimmern : ' ' The Greek Commonwealth. ' '
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at its best during the Persian war, but quickly broke down under the influence of rivalry be- tween Athens and Sparta. When it develops again in the empire, the real national solidarity is gone. External force, pride in a great leader, and the desire for the loot that came with suc- cessful war take the place of earlier national cohesion. These were not sufficient to sustain the empire any length of time. Only when the state was destroyed and the nation existed as a purely ideal or spiritual unity did Greece regain true unity.
In Rome we see an equally well developed sense of national unity, developing over a much wider area, and based upon rather different ideals. If the Jew may be said to have lived for his God, the Greek for his city or state and the ideals of justice which it fostered, Rome had an ideal of order and economic prosperity. Subordinate to this and a means to it was a just rule over all, but it was justice for the sake of the quiet and consequent prosperity, rather than justice in the abstract. The Roman roads and Roman laws are equally significant of the ideals which ruled the state because they had become rooted in the beliefs and in the habits of the people.2 They dominated during all forms of government from the early kings
* Marvin : « * The Living Past. ' '
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through the republic to the emperor. When they began to fall before the difficulty of apply- ing them under different local conditions throughout the broad extent of the empire where they came into conflict with the tradi- tions of conquered tribes, the empire itself be- gan to disintegrate.
i At no time has so large a proportion of the earth's known extent been united under one common rule over so long a period as under the Romans. Certainly at no time before and at no time for centuries after that had there been such complete recognition of the equality of man, or, to speak more truly, of equality of privilege to all men as under the Roman rule. True, there were distinctions between master and slave, between Roman and non-Roman, but the differences could be obliterated by proved ability. While the Athenians boasted that they gave rights to foreigners, the other Greek states were much more exclusive. The Roman seemed always ready to incorporate the desirable fea- tures of any tribe or nation within their own system and were quite ready to leave undis- turbed the local institutions that worked well. Roman citizenship was within the reach of any one who proved worthy, and the line between slave and free man was one that could be read- ily passed by all who proved exceptional abil-
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ity. While the Roman legions were an impor- tant factor in introducing and maintaining the Roman peace, the common ideals and the com- mon opportunity for sharing and profiting by them were the real forces in extending and per- petuating the Roman nation and the Roman in- fluence. In spite of its catholicity of taste in modifying its laws and customs to meet the needs of subject peoples and even in accepting better practices into its own code, the Roman ideals always dominated, the supremacy of Rome was always accepted, the Roman state was sufficiently virile to absorb and still to rule. ,We find, then, that tho ideal of justice which de- veloped in a narrow plain in central Italy, was sufficiently strong to bind together the few thou- sand original inhabitants, nerve them to resist numerous aggressions and to extend itself through their efforts over the greater part of the known world. As it conquered it absorbed, so that the final body was not merely ruled from above but the whole mass of citizen and subject alike was united by common respect for the Roman ideals as embodied in Roman laws and Roman political institutions. These ideals and laws outlasted the Roman state and still con- trol large numbers of individuals, and in less degree the modern civilized world. After the fall of the Roman Empire the stage
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is very dim, the story of actual historical hap- penings is not always clear and we have little record that throws light upon the motives of the great body of individuals. On the "whole it seems that with the eruptions of the northern barbarians, the central organization gradually broke down and the world dissolved into small units with only local affiliations. The center of reference was not now the tribe, but the local chieftain or feudal baron. The loyalties that remain are personal, to the local leader first and he to the greater and so on up. At times, as when certain of the Holy Roman emperors are in the saddle, there is a reorganization on something that approximates national lines, but these groupings are only transitory and when they exist the loyalty is to the man rather than to the state. Only the intellectual and religious affiliations extend beyond the local boundaries. The intellectual is not very strong, learning is restricted to a very few and they, because of their use of Latin, came into slight contact with the masses. Even the church tended to be some- thing apart from the mass of common in- dividuals. Religion no longer was for man, man existed for religion. Its doctrines were imposed from above and were tbeir own justi- fication. At times, as in the crusades, the com- mon religion would unite mankind everywhere
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for a common end, but these ends were tem- porary and when the expedition was over the organization disbanded. In short, it seems safe to say that the national organization disinte- grated in the medieval period, and that only very gradually did nations begin to arise after- wards.
"When the new nations did begin to appear, they took on a slightly different character from that of the ancient time. The modern nation always began as a combination to resist op- pression, and to establish an ideal. If we re- gard the feudal system with its personal alle- giance as typical of the medieval state, the modern is characterized by a revival of the no- tion of a social group as a definite entity, with loyalty to the group and its peculiar ideals. The modern state is different from the ancient also from the fact that in the former the ideals of the nation, on the whole, grow up within and may be said to be a product of the nation, while the modern nations are often new or re- vived outgrowths or embodiments of ideals. In the one the nation came first, the ideal later, in the other the ideals were first and the nation ap- peared later to establish it. This is more nat- ural than it seems at first sight for when an- cient civilizations went to pieces as states the ideals still survived; they were cherished by
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many men and when physical hardships became too great, they were revived to form the basis of new organizations and to justify the instinc- tively organized revolts. Many of the modern states, most of the very modern, are embodi- ments of these ideals, although it must be granted that the ideal alone did not suffice to produce a state until some practical need or anger against oppression drove a group to struggle to realize it.
While the state first fully develops according to this principle in the late eighteenth century we can see anticipations of it on a small scale here and there in the medieval period and from then on. Some of the Italian cities ap- proach it from time to time on a small scale, and the Netherlands of the sixteenth century exhibit it in full measure.
This course of growth is seen very clearly in the development of Switzerland, one of the earliest to appear as a distinctly national unit, the first certainly in which there is little trace of loyalty to a leader as the basis or starting point of the organization. Switzerland, too, has had a purely democratic form of govern- ment for the longest time. If we may believe the tradition, the men of the original four can- tons were driven to unite in the revolt by the heavy taxes and cruelty of the Hapsburgs. The
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revolt itself was justified by an appeal to the general principle of liberty. After the original revolt was successful, pride in the deeds of the men who had struggled and won, of Tell and of Arnold von Winkelried, added enthusiasm to the union and cooperation of the descendants. The common tradition, pride in ancestors, and the continued necessity for protection against strong and dangerous neighbors sufficed to con- tinue and to strengthen the bond. Even when with the growth of the nation new groups were added, some with different languages, and when religious differences made their appearance, the national unity triumphed. Switzerland may safely be said to be the first of the modern na- tions to have developed through a desire for liberty. As such it was a place of refuge for those seeking freedom all through the modern period. As in most of medieval history many of the heroic events and even the motives for the original organization may have been a con- struction of later origin. But they neverthe- less reveal the ideals of the people who origi- nated and accepted the myths, the Swiss of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. They indicate that with the renaissance we had in Switzerland a real nation, held together by ideals of free- dom and strong enough to maintain its posi- tion. It is probable that it is in Switzerland
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we have the strongest national consciousness that has persisted for the longest period of any in the modern world.
In other countries the course of the develop- ment is more obscure. England certainly had a gradually increasing consciousness of being a distinct people from a very early time. It is the more difficult to determine in what it con- sisted because it developed so gradually and never had occasion to burst forth into any single expression. As everywhere, it increased during periods of external conflict and was sub- ordinated to class and religious allegiances during periods of internal strife. It may be said to have had its first marked development during the aggressive campaigns of the Hun- dred Years ' War and was especially strong dur- ing the threat of the Spanish Armada. Eng- land most nearly approaches the ancient Bo- mans in the nature of the national conscious- ness, in that that consciousness has been closely connected with the development of the practical institutions. The ideals most firmly impressed were the ideals of justice, which were respected in fact, in spite of marked theoretical differ- ences in privileges between the orders of so- ciety and even the degrees of education. The most distinctive characteristics of the nation are its laws, which were accepted as superior
to the authority of the king in the Magna Charta, and have been supreme for all ever since with constant growth through adaptation to the changing ideals of the people. About this develops the sacredness of the person and of the home of the common citizens, and an ideal of civil liberty that is equaled in few other countries. Together with this has gone a grad- ual perfection in the organization of business and manufacture, and an ideal of business suc- cess that reminds one of the Eoman organiza- tion and ideals. At times in the later years it is probable that this ideal has been permitted to dominate the other ideal of the personal rights of the individual in a way that has been unfortunate for the lower members of the so- cial order, perhaps in even greater degree than in the other commercial states.
The development of the spirit of nationality in England is particularly important since the spurs to that development so prominent in most other nations, resistance to an aggressor or op- pressor, have been singularly lacking. England has never been conquered since it was England and seldom seriously threatened by a foreign power. It gives evidence that the spirit of nationality may develop to the full in a people who have usually been moved by the desire to cooperate, by the sympathetic instincts, rather
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than by the more active protective or aggres- sive impulses. While the ideals have seldom come to full consciousness, and the nature of the nation is therefore rather more difficult to trace, no one would deny the existence in the Englishman of a strong national conscious- ness. And that, too, in spite of the fact that the lines between the classes and between dif- ferent forms of religious beliefs are more rigid- ly drawn and society more conventionalized than in other modern states.
In France, loyalty to the nation as a whole has alternated with adherence to the local group. In the early years the local allegiances were much stronger than loyalty to the central authority, and since the central authority was the king, loyalty was a personal loyalty, rather than loyalty to the nation as such. A man was less a Frenchman than a follower of Louis or of Henry. At times, as when Jeanne d'Arc stirred the nation, the national spirit is brought to the fore. All are French and will fight to the death rather than be subjected by the hated Englishman. On the whole, however, in me- dieval and modern France to the death of Louis XIV, the consciousness of unity is a com- mon dependence on the reigning family. This varies from time to time with the popularity of the monarch, and on the whole there is a pro-
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grassing national spirit, an allegiance to the whole people as a group or entity. A man be- comes gradually more a Frenchman than a Bre- ton or a Norman, or Provencal, and more a citizen and less a subject.
Of Germany and Italy little is to be added to what has been said of Europe in general. Both had such checkered careers from the fall of the Koman Empire to the time of Napoleon, or really until the period of the universal blos- soming of the national consciousness in the middle of the last century, that it is impossible to say at most times whether there is a nation or only a group of principalities, and, if both exist, whether the whole or the part is the ob- ject of the individual's allegiance or loyalty. During the greater portion of this period it is fairly clear that in Italy the sense of a com- mon nationality was at a low ebb. Undoubted- ly the common language, and at times the recog- nition of the Pope as the head of the church with claims to temporal power made many in- dividuals count themselves as Italians when there was no common state to which they might belong. This was certainly true of many upon whom Dante had an influence, both his imme- diate successors and his intellectual disciples through the centuries. If one were to choose whether he were Italian or French there would
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be no question, except in the region of Savoy, but if the question were raised as to whether one were Florentine or Italian, or Venetian or Italian, the answer would not be quite so easy. Here, too, the consciousness of nationality was stimulated at times by the conflicts with the German Holy Roman emperors, to lapse again when no outside force threatened.
In Germany the problem is still more diffi- cult and the situation varies more from time to time. The personal allegiance is, as in France, the most important element. If we re- gard the Holy Roman emperors as the rulers of Germany, we may say that when a strong man is on the throne, there is a sense of unity and a recognition of a common authority ; when a weak man succeeds, the empire dissolves into its constituent parts. Through the empire even when divided politically there is probably al- ways some recognition of a wider Deutschthvm. How much, it is particularly difficult to say, for since the modern revival of the empire, Ger- man historians have undoubtedly exaggerated the unity of earlier periods for political effect upon the present generation. When Luther or- ganized his revolt against the Church a na- tional spirit was aroused which was strength- ened by his translation of the Bible and the consequent general literary use of the German
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language. In neither Germany nor Italy was there a nation in the sense that we find one in Switzerland, in Holland, in England, or even in France, although in both many of the men- tal or social forces essential to the develop- ment of a nation are operative.
It is not until the latter part of the eight- eenth century that we first find full recogni- tion of the nation as an organic unity, a whole with the action of the parts determined by the parts instead of from without or from above. Before that the picture of the state was of a mass of individuals dominated by superior au- thority. Even when the warrant for the or- ganization really came from the ideals of the individuals who composed it, the rules were justified by reference to some higher power, human or divine. From the Greeks down men had sought the best means of securing jus- tice and of giving each man his rights, but in theory the standard of justice was al- ways derived from a lawgiver, from God or a god, or at the best from some immutable and logically deduced principle which was only recognized by man, not made by him or derived from his nature and rights. When, as hap- pened not infrequently in the middle ages, ap- peal was taken from the king or pope it was always to the law of God rather than to the
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rights of man. Man was made for the state or for the law or for the nation, not the state or the law or religion for man. It should be said that most of the early theories of human so- ciety follow Plato in considering the political organization of the state as primary and in de- riving justice from theoretical principles rather than from the nation as a social body, devel- oped by natural laws.
With the last half of the eighteenth century the emphasis is shifted fairly suddenly to the problems of the nation as such and of the ways in which peoples might have developed states for themselves. The assumption gradually gains acceptance that, if there were no central authority or divine warrants for a social or po- litical organization, one must have developed because of the nature of mankind. This way of looking at the problem was a natural outcome of the skeptical and naturalistic atti- tude of the philosophers from Descartes to Con- dillac, Lamettrie and Hume, but it found more definite expression in the very popular works of the Encyclopedists and Voltaire. It took the form that exercised a profound influence on po- litical and social theories in the writings of Montesquieu and particularly in the contrat social of Eousseau. Rousseau's insistence on the natural goodness of mankind in a state of
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nature, and his belief that government arose and must have arisen from the very character of human nature by the spontaneous union of men into groups appealed strongly to the im- agination of the western world and became the political bible of the epoch. It is not within our province to trace the origin of Rousseau's theory. It is probable that other men were ex- pressing the same theory; certainly the cur- rent philosophy led rather easily to the con- clusion expressed. As happens so frequently it fell to the lot of Rousseau to crystallize and formulate what had been previously only sug- gested, and he is given credit, whether de- servedly or not, for a radical departure in po- litical theory.
Beginning with the American Revolution the history of modern times has seen one nation after another develop a vigorous and very often an aggressive democracy which embodies in some degree the same fundamental principles. In each instance the change in the form of gov- ernment has followed approximately the same course. There was usually some definite abuse or discomfort ; efforts were made to remove or to reduce it and in the process the movement went farther than was at first intended. In the first two cases, too, political ideals have been adduced to warrant or to justify the po-
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litical change, but these theories have been brought in to excuse or to advance the change. They do not originate the movement. It chanced that the most immediate cause for complaint in each of the peoples was that the taxes were unfairly imposed. It was not so much the bur- densomeness of the taxes, although in France they were burdensome, as the way in which they were levied that aroused the ire of the masses. In America the exactions were not suf- ficient to produce any real suffering or to take any undue proportion of the total income. The resentment was against the injustice, the men- tal rather than the physical anguish. Probably the resentment started because the taxes were of a new kind and the language of the decree that assessed them was not altogether tactful. This led to seeking an excuse for not paying them. Partly they came after the stress of a successful war when the colonies felt that the mother country should have been grateful for their services and shown increased generosity rather than have added an unwonted burden. The objections to the taxes were not much greater than were those of the Englishman at home to the corresponding imposts, the cider tax, for instance.
Before the taxes were imposed, the attitude of the colonists towards England had been as
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friendly as could be desired, more friendly than the relation between the different colonies them- selves. There was less in common between the Puritans of New England and the Cavaliers of Virginia or the Catholics of Maryland than between any of the colonies and England. The political theories of each of the colonies were represented by a certain group or class in the old country, while they were absolutely antag- onistic among themselves. In fact one of the members of Parliament who favored the im- position of the new taxes argued that the dif- ferences between the colonies would prevent them from uniting for common defense. Even after the temporary repeal of the stamp tax in 1766, the colonies gave over all opposition to the king and celebrated his birthday as loyal and friendly subjects. Once the attitude of opposition had been taken, however, it grew on both sides. The colonists were less con- cerned about the money loss than the principle, and the king was anxious to compel the colonies to pay, not so much because he needed the rev- enue— he was in danger of spending more than that amounted to in the cost of collection — as because he would not be defied. "What strikes one most is the suddenness with which the storm breaks. It is not a case in which there had been a long period of irritation that suddenly
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rose to unendurable force. Bather, all had been harmonious and the best of relations had ex- isted. Then with the passage of a single bill opposition came at once and went compara- tively quickly to the point of action.
When the dispute begins, the feelings grow constantly stronger on both sides. As usual, the instinctive resentment was quickly justi- fied by theory. As John Morley has said, the feeling or the act is instinctive, only later is a rational explanation and, in case of need, a justification given for it. The reason alleged may or may not be the real cause of the re- sentment. In this instance, we find after the resentment arose that a large number of beau- tiful theories were developed or revived to prove that taxes should not be paid and to arouse the more lethargic to opposition. Some of these theories, such as the argument that there could be no taxation without representa- tion, were derived from pure English sources. Others were modifications of Rousseau's prin- ciples of natural rights. The appeal to liberty, with little attempt to define what was meant by liberty and with shades of meaning that varied from man to man, was the most common. What had been accepted without question be- fore the great cause of irritation had been given was now a violation of the sacred principle and
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must be eliminated at all cost. These furnished the ideal element that was accepted after the fact as the reason for the outburst and all of the resistance that was offered. If objection to taxes, the objection to the remarks of the new government in England and probably, too, dislike of the more prosperous colonials who as a rule arrayed themselves on the side of the government, really produced the emotions ; the cause assigned was the more presentable doc- trine of liberty and the infringement upon local freedom of government. That the resentment would have been felt if the way had not been prepared by the theories of liberty and other liberal political theories everywhere in the air, is not probable. That the ideals of liberty and self-government alone would have produced the revolt in the absence of anger at a disturbance of the regular course of life is still less prob- able.
After the issue had been drawn and the ma- jority of colonists had been united in opposi- tion, the common hate and the combined action against the enemy brought almost at once the sense of community that constitutes the essence of nationality. Differences in political theory, in social organization, in religion were all for- gotten for the time being in the prosecution of the great purpose. After peace had been made,
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the necessity for continued cooperation and the memory of common deeds and the common suf- ferings of the struggle continued to hold all to- gether, until the spirit could be embodied in written law and in accepted practice, which con- stitute the state. When all was peaceful in for- eign relations, the older differences in theory and in temperament became more prominent and for the first quarter century it was now and again a question whether the instincts that divide or the instincts that unite would domi- nate. In the second war with great Britain and the period that preceded, the dislike of one sec- tion by the other very nearly overcame the co- hesive forces, and it was not until the period of prosperity which followed that war that the nation was assured. During the disruption of the nation in the Civil War the bonds between the people were completely severed; only the forces of the state, the political rather than the emotional union, survived.
The laws that control and the course of the changes in France are very similar. The occa- sion for the commotion was objection to taxes; the revolution was not intended when objec- tions were first made, and after the break had been made the accomplished acts were justi- fied in terms of Rousseau's theory and of the theory of the American Revolution. Each step
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taken was also discussed in advance and the principles of the rights of man and human free- dom advocated in the Assembly. But the series of moves made towards increasing democracy came suddenly and seem never to have been in- tended by the responsible leaders, if any of the leaders could be regarded as responsible. Thus we find an Assembly called to discuss im- proved methods of levying taxes spending its time discussing more or less fatuously almost every other problem of government, and finally ending by being compelled by an outside force, the Parisian mob, to limit the powers of the monarchy. The king gave way to the Assem- bly, the Assembly to the Convention, the Con- vention in reality to a few leaders and to the mob. Absence of the local self-government and lack of a foreign enemy to force internal co- hesion, that had been present in the American Revolution, led to a constant increase in an- archy. The old regime dissolved, but no new organization appeared sufficient to take the necessary responsibility for the simplest acts of government. Each man in authority was ready to execute any one that he feared might be an enemy lest he himself should be a victim later. While the ideals of liberty and of love were upon the lips of every one, each became a petty tyrant when he had a chance and pas-
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sions of hate were very much more in evidence than deeds of kindness.
Striking, too, was the fact that the armies of the Revolution at the first excuse started out on the paths of conquest, and while the words and songs of freedom and the spirit of independence inspired them with an unwonted courage and effectiveness, their attitude to- wards the conquered was the same as that of the older autocrats except perhaps that they were even more cruel and overbearing be- cause of the belief that the new freedom gave them a great superiority over their less pro- gressive neighbors. Of the three watchwords introduced by the revolution and still the motto of France, " liberty" came to mean merely li- cense to oppress every one who was weak, "equality" was for the public while the lead- ers successively prescribed elaborate forms of servility for all who approached them, and "fraternity" was reserved for men of the same party or at the most of the same nation. The whole course is a striking illustration of the fact that the tender and aggressive instincts, love and hate, are present in nearly equal meas- ure in every individual. When freed from the restraint of habit, particularly of habit and convention as embodied in institutions, the op- posed instincts alternate in such rapid succes-
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sion that social life is at best uncertain, and is almost sure to become frightful. The Russian chaos offers, if we may trust reports, further evidence of the same laws.
Not the least instructive part of the French Revolution is its far-reaching effect upon the spirit of the world. Although it ended in a riot of internal disorganization, which made its strongest supporters enthusiastically welcome a dictator as a relief, it is the most important single influence in the remaking of the states of Europe into nations. Its principles, which failed absolutely in practice, persisted as ac- cepted theories during the succeeding regimes of the Empire and of the new monarchy and, as they were adopted by states which were suffi- ciently organized to repress the excesses of the uncontrolled conflicting instincts and emotions, became the guiding influence in each of the new free nations. While the first failure made the Revolutionary governments abhorrent to the French themselves and to the enlightened world, the ideals from which the Revolution grew, or which justified it to thei populace, were unaffected. In the French nation itself they have remained the watchwords of the people, and have sought embodiment in institu- tions whenever opportunity offered. Even under Napoleon they served to unite the people
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and to nerve the armies to conflict. Common acceptance of them was an important element in the spirit of unity that has made the French people a nation from that day to this, in spite of temporary departures from freedom in the form of government.
There has been an exuberant growth of na- tionalities in the nineteenth and in the early years of the twentieth centuries. As we stand now at the end of the war it seems that many more will be born or embodied in states in the next few years. The development of these modern nationalities has followed a course more like that of the American than of the French Revolution, while one, Germany, has a law all her own. One of the striking cases is the de- velopment of modern Italy. The Italian sense of unity persisted, or was at least sporadically reawakened at intervals after the fall of the Eoman Empire. It is probably safe to say that the common people had been united in aspira- tions to a certain extent from the time of Dante, but had been prevented from realizing that union by the heads of states. On the whole the strictly Italian consciousness had been subordi- nated to the local allegiances and to the re- ligious devotion to the Pope. Dante had at- tempted to rearouse it and had left an abiding reminder of the possibilities and an eloquent
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appeal for their attainment. Still the emotional response was mild, there was little embodiment of it in institutions and the love of a united Italy was largely Platonic.
The end of a united Italy with a single politi- cal organization was realized in the usual way. Mazzini furnished the ideals, or at least vivi- fied to every Italian the ideals of the century. The Austrian, the Pope, and the King of Naples furnished the more painful and immediately stirring incentives of oppression, cruel punish- ments, over-taxation and suppression of free speech. Not the least important was the states- manship of Cavour. Finally the enthusiasm and generalship of Garibaldi touched off the material prepared for the conflagration, and provided the heroic figure that inspired any hesitating patriot. The pride in the early his- tory and the appeals of Mazzini, reenforced and advertised by the failure of the earlier revolts and the cruelty that was used in suppressing them, had prepared the way and, when leader- ship was provided, the spirit of nationality flamed forth and an independent state was born. It is interesting that the rallying cry of Maz- zini, the atheist, pro popolo e deo, should have contained the religious element. This must have seemed to the followers of the church most ironical, and the ultra-sceptical mind of Maz-
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zini himself must have given it a peculiar in- terpretation. One might argue from this that the ideals which are used to warrant a revolt need not express its real cause — that the rally- ing cries need not be taken literally. Any watchword will arouse the people, provided only it obtains sufficient vogue. Not its mean- ings but its emotional association is impor- tant.
In the nations that are now just coming into political recognition or are being revived, the Ukrainians, the Czechs, the Slovenes and Jugo- Slavs, the Poles, one may see the same ele- ments. Each has a common and peculiar lan- guage, an ancient history and in some cases an ancient literature in which they have taken a gradually increasing pride. All have been im- pelled to seek an independent political exist- ence by the oppressive form of government to which they have been subjected, and now that the great powers that have been holding them in check are weakened or dissolved they are ready to develop the political independence that their national existence has long demanded and deserved. The ideals are fully accepted; all that is necessary is a chance to give expres- sion to them. The new states they are estab- lishing will give an opportunity to test at once the virility of the national spirit, and the capac-
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ity of the people for political organization and coherence.
. The development of German unity is of par- ticular interest from the fact that the instinc- tive bonds that brought the various parts of the Empire together are very different from those that were effective in the other states of the western world. The first impulse came from the long and uncertain but finally suc- cessful struggle against Napoleon. After some centuries of fighting against each other and in various combinations against foreign foes, the northern German states found themselves united at that time against a common enemy, an enemy that on several occasions had an op- portunity to prove his capacity as an oppressor. Coupled with this there had been a literary and philosophical awakening that had developed a system of inspiring ideals, and had emphasized the community of the German people and re- vived a memory of the ancient glories. Kant and Hegel, Schiller and Goethe provided the ideals, the successes of Stein after the period of subjection stirred the spirit of the people. This part of the development of the German nation follows the general rule as observed hitherto. There is first a development of ideals in the people as a whole, then some occasion is found for sacrifice in a common cause to attain a de-
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sired end. This brought the northern German states into a certain degree of unity of spirit, partly sealed in the political organization.
After the Napoleonic period we find a new tendency and a turning of the ideals into a new form. The scientific development added new glories to the continued philosophical and lit- erary activities and the pride in race and language increased constantly. Aside from the theories of the leaders in the abortive revolu- tion of 1848, the dominant note in the speeches and writings of the German political theorists was the supremacy of the state over the indi- vidual and the necessity for a strong state in the struggle for existence, not as in other parts of the western world, emphasis upon the prin- ciples of freedom and popular rights. The state was exalted as the unit for survival and its ex- altation became the aim of every true citizen. This ideal seems to have been as thoroughly rooted in the governing class as were ever the notions of Eousseau in the minds of the French populace, and it echoed in less definite .form through the lower classes. The state was made a super-person with an existence almost as real as that of the individual person. It was given a divine warrant and a personal devotion was developed towards it that seemed to equal in many cases the devotion towards immediate
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relatives or to the church. The series of wars engineered by Bismarck increased the patriotic emotion by their successful outcome. The first in 1864 and the second in 1866 united northern Germany, and the French war, given the form of a defensive war by Bismarck's cunning, united all by the glow of common deeds and the participation in the benefits of the indem- nity.
This development of the German state is im- portant for our theory as it is one of the few instances in modern times in which a national consciousness has been aroused on any other ideal than liberty or freedom. With Germany, the ideal was the aggrandizement of the state at the expense of the neighbors. It was justi- fied by the assertion and apparently by a gen- eral belief that the Germans were a superior people, that their state had a superior civiliza- tion and by virtue of that superiority was en- titled to rule the world of lesser states and of inferior men with inferior attainments. This was furthered by an appeal to selfishness. The citizens were to be rewarded, not merely by the pride they were to feel in membership in an all- conquering body, but they were individually to be better fed and cared for, to receive better wages and thrive at the expense of their weaker neighbors. The union was cemented by a sue-
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cessful war, but it was a war of aggression rather than of defense. The war was started under the pretense of a defensive war which gave the government a stronger position with the people and with the world outside. Once started it continued as a war of aggression, and the official political theory of modern Germany recognizes the necessity for war, even an ag- gressive war, for the furtherance of the ends of the state. As we have viewed the nation in the light of evolutionary analogies we have found hitherto that the instincts that were promi- nent in the development were the instincts of self-protection, the people were as deer herd- ing together for common defense. The origin of the German nation represents the pack of wolves gathering for a united foray. It seems that either will suffice for the development of a common consciousness, whatever moral judg- ment we may pass upon the method and the re- sult.
CHAPTEK V
NATIONALITY IN THE PEOCESS OF NATURALIZA- TION
AT the end of the first chapter we had come to the tentative conclusion that nationality was the expression of a mental attitude and the product of experience based upon a fundamen- tal instinct, that it was acquired rather than innate. The best evidence for this statement is found in the fact that national affiliations change. A study of the conditions of this change and of the process itself should give a knowledge of the nature of the mental state and of many problems connected with it. Any nation in which the population is compounded of immigrants from many countries would fur- nish a laboratory for this problem. Undoubt- edly, the most favorable conditions for study are provided in the United States. In no other country is the population so mixed, and in no other has the process of transferring allegiance been so long continued and on the whole so complete.
This method of studying our problem is not
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altogether free from objections. In the first place the facts obtained are individual rather than statistical in character, and in consequence their interpretation is bound to be open to prej- udices due to the experiences and heredity of the individual who passes judgment. The only available statistics of the sentiments of immi- grants are furnished by the number of natu- ralizations, and these are open to many inter- pretations. Some are naturalized for pecuniary and social advantages, some even for the pro- tection it will afford them in the native land, without undergoing any real change in atti- tude, any change of heart. On the other hand we are often inclined to mistake a difference in political theory for differences in national alle- giance. Many foreigners are socialists and so have a very weak affection for any form of gov- ernment of the present type, and at the same time may be American in national spirit, or at least be more nearly a member of this com- munity than of any other. Many of the native stock have accepted these theories without thereby being eliminated from the American nation. We must not expect more of the for- eign born than we do of our native citizens.
Other prejudices of similar nature are likely to becloud the interpretation of the facts. One of the most important is race prejudice. No
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one can count himself free from this, because when he is deeply affected by it he does not regard it as a prejudice but as an accepted fact. Through family and community environment every one has a fondness for his own race and coupled with that a firm belief in the inferior- ity of all others. When present, this prevents complete national amalgamation. Neverthe- less we do find that race prejudices are, for certain purposes, overlooked in the nation, — that several nations are composed of races, each of which looks with distaste upon the others and yet work together for national ends. The negro in America constitutes such an element, the Jew, wherever he is found, another. In the one case the feeling that one is inferior is held by one alone, but in the other it is mutual. The social prejudices are equally strong and in many cases hold towards the same peoples as the racial prejudices. Any of my readers will admit without question that he dislikes men who are too poor, or too dirty, or who speak ungrammatically and use tooth picks in public. Many on the other hand feel the same distaste for the men with too much money or those too fastidious in dress, perhaps even for those too fastidious in language. The Montana ranch- man meets the condescension of the eastern visitor, whether real or suspected, by calling
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him a dude. These objections to people of dif- ferent wealth, different education, manners, or even of trades and professions, which fuse to constitute social differences, give rise to a com- mon emotion in which the elements are not dis- tinguished. In coming to a decision whether a foreigner is or is not a member of the Ameri- can nation, it is necessary to determine whether the feelings that separate him from the ob- server are the product of his national or of his social or of his political attitudes.
Study of the question whether a particular individual is an integral member of a nation may be approached from two sides, from the attitude of the individual towards society and from the attitude of society towards him. Usu- ally the individual regards himself as a member of the nation before the other members of the social group are willing to accept him fully. If one follows the process of amalgamation, one finds that it begins with a belief on the part of the individual that he is one with the com- munity in which he lives in aspirations and de- sires while he is still looked upon by the mem- bers or by many of them with suspicion or aloofness. He is content with a very platonic affection. Gradually he is accepted as a mem- ber of the state for business and political pur- poses, but is not regarded as a social equal.
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Slowly and grudgingly lie may be admitted to some degree of social intimacy, but not to the most complete intimacy — he will be invited to the house but marriage with a daughter would be looked upon with aversion. In the final stage, all consciousness of race is lost and he is accepted without question as friend and equal. For the man himself and others he is at this point a part of the nation in the full sense.
Historically, it is easy to trace the various stages in this development. Numerous races have passed through it. The Irish, the German, the Swede, each in his own region has been first a complete outsider, the object of poorly con- cealed scorn or ridicule; then he is tolerated and his good qualities recognized; finally he is completely accepted and intermarries with the oldest stocks without question or hesitation on their part. If one traces the history of the atti- tude of any small or medium sized New Eng- land manufacturing town to the successive waves of immigration, these different degrees of acceptance of each race can be seen in suc- ceeding stages. From the comments of grand- parents and from books one can reconstruct the course of the Irish. In the grandmother of the middle class, whose reaction was determined in the forties, there is still sufficient explanation of the shortcomings of a neighbor in the Irish
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name. You can expect nothing of a Murphy. This attitude is brought out now only when some fault or misfortune is to be explained or understood, but is general. It is a remnant of the original attitude of half a century ago. The son shows signs of suspicion or distaste; the grandson can little understand either, un- less the race is also coupled with adherence to a religion or a political party objectionable to the speaker.
I have myself seen somewhat the same change in the case of the French Canadian. As a boy visiting a New England factory town I was repeatedly told by an intelligent native of the disagreeable qualities of the French. They were dirty, were given to drink, constituted for some not well defined reason a danger that made it necessary to shun them for one 's moral and physical salvation. They were represented as coming in swarma- to this country, where large families all worked together in the mills, lived in squalor and saved money enough to go back home and buy a farm. As in most in- stances of race prejudice the faults were hinted at rather than specified, and the very vagueness of the statements added to the dis- taste produced. I remember that it was said of a close fisted, aggressive native real estate spec- ulator that when he wanted to buy a piece of
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property lie made the owner an offer and if it was not accepted he would buy a house on either side, fill it with French and in the expres- sive colloquialism of my informant "stink him out."
After twenty years' absence I happened to make some comment to this same man about the ways of the French, quoting as literally as I could remember them his own statements of an earlier visit and was surprised to have him deny that they had any of the qualities as- signed. They were a sober, clean, industrious people, in fact were altogether American. I found that the natives were mixing with them on terms of equality and with no repugnance towards their manners or morals. That the change had not been altogether in the habits of the French became clear when I talked with men who had had more intimate dealings with them in the earlier period. A member of the same man's family, who had as employment manager to look up the reasons for absence from work in the homes of the operatives, re- ported that they had always been neat and law abiding, a statement that harmonizes with what one knows of their life in their home environ- ment. "When the new immigrants are regarded as outsiders all their peculiarities are exag- gerated, the habits of the few are ascribed to
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all, and many traits are attributed to them which have absolutely no foundation. When accepted, the estimate becomes more just. The French Canadian has been accepted as the Irish before him, and now the Greek and the southern Slav is taking his place as the outsider, the individual scarcely human.
You will find that the man who has this prejudice, as who has not, will find a reason for it in the inferiority of the race of the new and unaccepted group. He will tell you that the earlier Irish knew the language, are of our own stock. The French lived in a democracy before they came into this country and so on throughout the list. There may be much or lit- tle of fact in these statements, but they suffice to satisfy the prejudice and that is all that is needed. The enthusiast for the community of mankind assures you that they will amalgamate as have their predecessors; the cynic sees in them, as did his predecessor of three quarters of a century ago in the Irish, a menace to the purity of the race and to our free institutions.
It may be objected to this statement that newer arrivals have amalgamated only with the lower classes, that these people have not been admitted into the highest circles, but only into the fellowship of the middle class. Their names do not appear in the list of those present at im-
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portant social gatherings in the big cities. Ad- mit this and you need say only that the list does not include members of the native stock of similar wealth and opportunities. Not in- frequently this list is based on descent and on the time that the family has been a resident. They are accepted socially by individuals whom they know in trade and shop. Men of the race of special training, lawyers and physicians, are accepted by the native stock and marriage with them is not looked on askance by the native group. The exceptional man who gains wealth and education does appear in all but the most exclusive homes and on the most intimate occa- sions in the most select circles.
The process of amalgamation on the part of the immigrants follows much the same course. Most of those admitted are fleeing from some- thing worse, and, hard as their lot may be here, they have suffered and escaped from a harder. They come ready to be assimilated and thank- ful to be accepted as a part of the community, even a humble part. That on the whole they become amalgamated in spirit cannot, I think, be denied in spite of a few exceptions and in spite of the long time required in many cases. For the most part they are more concerned with being accepted into the nation and its life than with the question of its advantages. Only
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as they obtain a place and know more of the life do they become critical of American ideals or of American practices. Even then they are likely to take the avowed political ideals as a basis for the criticism of life and practice as they actually find it. Several recent critics among the foreigners and even some native Americans claim that the ideals of American- ism persist only among the recent immigrants, while the native stock is devoted to the worship of mammon and lost in the marshes of racial prejudice and intolerance.
What it is that makes an individual change his allegiance can be determined in a measure from a study of the reports available in the records of the individuals who have changed, and of the influences which statistics and ob- servations show to produce the change. First, one must assume that there is the social instinct common to all men. This has identified the individual in emotion and ideal with his older community. One may readily distinguish two groups of individuals in this respect. The man of education or position or both is moved largely by ideals. He has not infrequently accepted the ideals of the nation before, he comes and if then he finds only a moderately friendly reception from the citizens he is likely to change his allegiance fully by such slow de-
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grees that he will hardly know himself when or how the process takes place. As one reads the * * Eeminiscences " of Carl Schurz, for example, one discovers little or nothing- of the forces at •work in the change because apparently he ac- cepts citizenship and is accepted altogether without question. He passes from the distin- guished guest to the respected citizen with prac- tically no intermediate stage. This is partly due, no doubt, to the fact that he at once be- comes an active worker against slavery in com- mon with a large number of older residents. He finds that he holds ideals in common with them and fights in a single cause.
Opposed to this, one may see at times an edu- cated man who looks at the new always from the standpoint of the old civilization, who ac- cepts the customs and values of his former resi- dence as standard and passes upon all things and peoples in terms of them. Such a man will remain essentially a foreigner no matter how long he may live in the community. It is true that when he returns to the country of his birth he may find that it is as far different in reality from what he had pictured it in his memory as is the new. In that case our carp- ing critic either returns more ready to change his allegiance or remains without definite affili- ations in spirit with either country. What is
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lacking here is usually the willingness to accept the ideals of the new community or inability to work in harmony with its citizens for a com- mon cause. One can find numerous examples of each class among educated foreigners resi- dent for longer or shorter periods among us. The difference between them is partly in age, the one usually younger and more tractable, the other older and more fixed in standards; and is partly personal. The one is willing to learn, the other assured, perhaps even con- ceited, in his own opinion. On the whole, how- ever, a man of this training who has united with a group of the native born in the pushing of some ideal, who makes common cause on any point with the citizens of the community, quickly becomes in essentials a true member of the nation. On certain points he is bound to retain his old beliefs, to be a critic rather than a partisan of the new country. In this he is, of course, in no different position from any in- telligent citizen. One can decide whether he has or has not changed his allegiance from his whole attitude rather than from his attitude on one point alone.
The factors and forces that make for the naturalization and nationalization of the un- educated or unintelligent mass are of a differ- ent nature. These must always be the great
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majority and constitute at once the greatest problem for the nation and the most interest- ing material for investigation on the nature of the feeling of nationality. The intelligent men are few and are moved in greater part by rational considerations. The real reasons for their becoming citizens are more nearly the reasons alleged. At least they are more open to observation and more capable of reporting than are the great mass. The latter constitute the real nation. In them the instinctive and habitual processes run their course less influ- enced by the pale cast of thought. "We may study in them the forces that are really effec- tive rather than those the theorist thinks should work.
Before discussing the influences that produce the assimilation of immigrants, it may be well to admit that there is a question as to how far that assimilation is really possible among the lowest classes and those who live together in the poorer neighborhoods in great cities, in isolated rural communities, or in the colonies of unskilled or partly skilled laborers in vil- lages devoted to a single industry. Undoubt- edly we can find striking instances of complete amalgamation under the most unfavorable of these conditions. It is also true that most of the members of families in the third generation
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are really assimilated and in many cases are not to be distinguished from descendants of first settlers of English stock. The excep- tions are to be found in the relatively few iso- lated communities which have been trans- planted as a whole from the old country, and have retained its language and customs.
In estimating the relative importance of the different influences, one may probably put first the desire for the better social standing and higher degree of physical comfort enjoyed by the native. That the superiority of wealth and ordinarily of education is an important factor in inducing the amalgamation, becomes evident if one thinks what the probable course would be were the immigrant to go among an inferior people. It has been the history of the settle- ment of countries inhabited by inferior races that they were merely driven out or extermi- nated. Where the native and immigrant are more nearly on a level or the natives are strong enough to hold their own, as in China and in certain of the more backward Latin American countries, either the races live entirely apart or the two fuse into a new race to which each contributes its share.
Many of the altruistic social workers and Zimmern among the theorists have criticized the American people for assumption of superi-
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ority and for their contempt of the foreigner. It must be admitted that it has no defense on theoretical or moral grounds. One must admit that the American is full of conceit as to his superiority and that the conceit is largely based on ignorance. In every city there are undoubt- edly many men who are passed by with con- tempt, or more likely never noticed at all, who, by their training and ability, are entitled to a high place in literature or art or political theory. This attitude is taken not by the superior Americans but by the ordinary man, very much inferior in every respect to the men he is looking down upon. Much as we may deprecate the unfairness of the American in this respect and lament the opportunities that he misses on account of it, we must still grant that by it the process of naturalization is hast- ened. The unreasoning race prejudice which shows itself in repugnance toward the strange speech, customs, and standards of the immi- grant is one of the strongest forces in com- pelling him to be absorbed. How the opposite course of accepting all as equals, with manners and clothing and standards that were merely different but just as good, would work, we can- not say because it has never been tried. Prob- ably one would find that if the newcomer was not repressed he would dominate and soon
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oppress. At the best he would not be assimi- lated. Whatever its ethical value, even its logi- cal truth, race prejudice is one of the most im- portant forces in the amalgamation of the stranger.
It is, of course, granted that the more inde- pendent minds among the newcomers see the injustice of the native attitude, the more self- reliant resent it. The prejudice accounts in part for the strong socialistic and anti-govern- mental political beliefs among them. The great majority, however, feel the steady pressure of implied inferiority that meets them on every side and in every field. They respond to it both in essentials and non-essentials. Their costume may be affected first. The native dress is discarded as soon as possible. The women are ashamed to be seen without a hat; the native costume, however attractive in itself, soon becomes a mark of inferiority and a mat- ter of reproach. All of the external manners and customs yield in the same way. The methods of salutation, habits in ^ connection with the toilet and table are gradually given up or modified to meet the prevailing American usage.
Many of these are superficial and unimpor- tant in themselves and serve only to indicate the way in which the assumed superiority of the
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new compels the change in old customs. In the more essential respects the same forces are at work. Between manners and hygiene there is a close relation. The reason for abandoning overcrowding in sleeping quarters, unhygienic food and personal habits is usually the social disrepute in which they stand rather than any rational consideration. To be able to receive friends in a room not used as a bed room, to say that the wife does not keep boarders, is a mark of social distinction, or a plea for social recognition quite as frequently as it is an ac- ceptance of rational hygiene or a consideration of the well-being of the wife. Even the pos- session of a bath room is frequently, among the lower circles, more a mark of social superi- ority than a means of cleanliness. When the change, whatever its nature, has been intro- duced as means for the attainment of social distinction, habits develop that have a hygienic value. Cleanliness in its different forms be- comes essential to comfort and cannot be easily dispensed with.
Frequently the change has been worked with slight recognition on the part of the individual. He may still look back with fondness to the good old ways. It is only when he tries a re- turn to the old that he appreciates his change and the advantages of the new. I remember a
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relatively young Greek at Patras, who had been recalled for service during the Turkish war and had gone .back to the shepherd's life of his parents while waiting for induction. Before his return he had looked back upon the shep- herd's life as idyllic, even as ideal. When he experienced it, the hardships, particularly the dirt, were insufferable. After a few weeks he gave up the life and came to Patras and worked as porter about a hotel. Even there he could not endure his accommodations but rented a room at his own expense to obtain the cleanli- ness that had become essential to him. Once the standard of comfort has been raised by the social forces, the new habits and the emotions that develop with them prevent slipping back to the lower level.
The changes in language show the influence either as cause or effect of the same forces. Here again the vices or incapacities of the Eng- lish race have what we may regard as a bene- ficial effect. Notoriously the Englishman is a bad linguist — it is with difficulty that he learns another language. Furthermore he has no de- sire to learn other tongues and is inclined to regard them as hardly worth while, if they are not beneath him. In consequence, wherever he goes he refuses or is not able to learn the language, and the other more competent lin-
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guists and more adaptable individuals learn his. The German, on the contrary, is usually better trained in languages, is keen to acquire a new one, and, in consequence, adopts the speech of the new home and gradually loses his own. The American may have more competence than the Englishman in learning the languages of others, but he is certainly as little able to appreciate the beauties or the ad- vantages of the immigrant's tongue. Ordi- narily he refuses to learn and in addition he assumes an attitude of superiority to the man who speaks another tongue or at least towards the man who cannot speak English. He is in- clined, even, to measure the general intelligence of a man by the accuracy with which he speaks English. One who speaks it brokenly is by the average untutored American at once assigned to an inferior social position.
While language may not be essential to be- longing to a nation, the individual who speaks the language of the race is more likely to know and to accept the ideals of the race than the individual who does not. He is also much more open to the manifold suggestions on all points that serve to mold the mass of newcomers in the unessentials as well as in the essentials. To read the newspapers, to understand political addresses and on occasion to make them one's
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self, are important elements in becoming a member of a nation. To know the literature gives one a point of contact with other mem- bers of the same group, stimulates emotions to be shared in common with them, and gradually gives a pleasant tone that will fuse with other feelings aroused by the thought of the nation or of the state. One can become one in spirit with the group only by knowing what the other members are thinking and learning, and this is impossible or at least very difficult unless one knows the language.
The other strong influence is the school. Most of the forces we have mentioned operate much more effectively upon the child than upon the adult. In the school the child feels them all with greatest force. Here he is forced to learn the language, here he receives his instruc- tion in hygiene and becomes aware of the habits and manners of the native morei intimately than his parents may ever do unless they be- come servants in the native homes. Here, too, the influence of race prejudice is felt most fully, even most brutally. The boy has no respect for the feelings of others and has no doubts about the superiority'of the ways of his elders. Even in neighborhoods where newcomers from one race are present in large numbers and possess considerable wealth, we find the children
ashamed to speak the language of their parents and thus gradually forgetting it. In many cases I have heard a college student regretting that he failed to take advantage of the oppor- tunity to learn the speech of his parents be- cause as a child he was ashamed to be heard speaking it. The cruelty with which children enforce the dictates of fashion upon members of their own race is much increased when the victim is an alien. When the foreigners are few in number the effect is overpowering and rapid. Even in schools where, as in many cities, the number of foreign children is large in proportion, the effect is still seen. It is weak- est where most of the children are of one for- eign nationality. If several nationalities are represented so that the different prejudices nullify each other, the American comes in to tip the beam and dominates all.
The Americanization of the child is effective not only for the next generation, but also works back upon the parents. The old people learn from their children and gradually accept the leading of the children. That this is true is emphasized by the reports of most social work- ers that the parent often loses his natural con- trol over the child in ways that are unfortunate. The father speaks only the language that the child has learned to disdain, the mother wears
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clothes that mark the "dago" or "wop," the manners of both are uncouth from the child's newly acquired standards. The teaching of the parents on all points is similarly open to suspi- cion. Where the child is exposed to tempta- tions the parental admonitions on points of morals are regarded as of no more value than their opinions on matters of dress or speech, and morals suffer. The new environment ex- erts its influence for bad as well as for good. Its strength is undoubted. The assimilation of the parent is frequently accomplished through the child.
In addition to the changes in ideals and other purely emotional respects it seems that even the physical and mental characteristics undergo a change as an individual moves from one coun- try to another. To make an American of an immigrant may mean, if this be true, not merely that he changes his likes and dislikes and his habits of living and thinking, but that he changes his physical characters and his men- tal capacity. Proof of this statement requires much longer observation and more accurate measurement than has been possible so far. A few bits of evidence are accumulating in its favor. On the physical side we have already mentioned the changes that have taken place in the Germans who settled in the Caucasus. One
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can easily note the changes that are found in the second generation of many races that keep pure in the United States. Men of both Ger- man and English stock are taller and in many cases more lithe than were their progenitors. These may easily be ascribed to better food and a more active life, as we find a similar change in the native stock as a family moves from the city to the country or from the east to the West. Most striking evidence for the physical change is Boas's1 series of measurements of the shape of the head in immigrant parent and native born child. He finds that the shape of the head tends to approach the average Ameri- can head, that the child of the broad headed (brachy cephalic) Eussian Jew becomes mark- edly longer (more dolichocephalic) in a single generation, while the head of the child of the long-headed Sicilian is broader than that of his parent. Why these changes take place cannot be stated at present. Boas himself makes no explanation. Their main significance is to in- dicate that even the physical characteristics of the immigrants may be changed. If the process continues there is a possibility that the new will not be distinguishable from the old even in stature and formation of the head.
*F. Boas: "Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Im- migrants." Government Printing Office. 1910.
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The change in the mental status of the immi- grant after a few years has often been re- marked. Carl Schurz 2 asserted that the Euro- pean peasant assumed in America an attitude of independence that he never would have at- tained in his home environment. The change he ascribed to the practice in self-government acquired here. Miss Balch, in her study of the Slavonic immigration, asserts that the returned immigrant can be easily detected in his Euro- pean home by his carriage and his greater in- dependence of thought and his interest in education. The returned Greeks who fought in the Balkan war had the reputation of being much better soldiers in every way than their fellows from the same province. They had more initiative, learned much more quickly, were in every way more intelligent. I was struck, as I chanced to be in Athens at the time, to see a Greek I had met on the boat, who had been unusually successful in America, walking with his brother who had come up to the city with him to enlist. The one had all the marks, the bearing, the garments of the better type of American business man. The brother was un- couth, awkward, a typical peasant, obviously what his brother had been a dozen years before.
"Carl Schurz: "Reminiscences," vol. 2, p. 77.
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This is typical of the change that is wrought by a few years' residence in America.
The results of measurements that have been made recently of the mental capacity of groups of immigrants, are in certain respects more definite than these general observations. The Binet tests were applied for three years to the Russian Jews and Italians who entered New York.3 These showed that at least 40 per cent of the adults of each race were below normal intelligence, had a mental capacity of no more than the equivalent of the American child of ten. This low state of intelligence is not trans- mitted to the offspring as measurements of their children in the schools show no such prevalence of mental defectiveness. Nor is it characteristic of the younger members of a first generation after a few years ' residence in this country, if one may judge from their success in business and in other pursuits. If low in- telligence were an innate character, we would expect it to appear in the children. As it is, we must assume that it is merely an acquired characteristic. One may venture the hypothe- sis that the narrow life of the peasants or lower grades of laborers in the home country which gives no opportunity for initiative results in
"H. H. Goddard: "Mental Tests and the Immigrant." Journal of Delinquency, vol. 2, p. 243.
151
the formation of habits of accepting everything on authority and so of not thinking, and that these habits have an injurious effect upon what seem to be the fundamental mental character- istics.
This fact of the low intelligence of the immi- grant would at least eliminate the hypothesis sometimes offered as an explanation that the emigrants are superior individuals, selected by their intelligence and initiative for the venture to the unknown land across the sea. That the best emigrate might be doubted on a priori consideration as well. To be sure, it requires initiative to break home ties and start alone. On the other hand the adventure appeals to the individuals who are not too prosperous and contented with their lot in the home environ- ment. The man who has succeeded is not likely to make the break unless he is the victim of political misfortune or of a wandering, venture- some disposition. It is the man who has not quite found his place and so probably the man of less than the average intelligence or adapta- bility who is forced to emigrate. In these days of assisted immigration, when the large major- ity come on funds sent from relatives already established in America, when, too, the steam- ship agents are soliciting immigrants and sup- plying through tickets from the village in Eu-
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rope to the destination in America, it fre- quently requires more strength, of character to resist than to yield to their entreaties. These forces would not necessarily select the worst for emigration but they would add to the best a large number of the less intelligent, and make it probable that the emigrants would be not much above the average of their community.
The elements we have been enumerating might be regarded as unessential, in many ways they are symbolic of the fundamental changes rather than themselves important. A woman may be just as good an American when she wears a shawl as when she wears a hat, but when she is sufficiently affected by the new environment to feel uncomfortable in the shawl, she and her family are likely to appreciate the forces of American society in other ways as well. And in associating American life with cleanliness and a high standard of living the immigrant is accepting ideals that may be more effective in creating an allegiance to the coun- try of his new residence than would acceptance of the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
But the work of transformation does not or- dinarily stop with a change in the habits of the toilet or in the standards of living. The formal political beliefs of the United States are suffi-
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ciently in harmony with the general likes and beliefs to make them acceptable to all, no mat- ter whence they may come. The questions raised are rather of the sincerity with which they may be applied, than of the principles themselves. Our immigrants may be socialists or belong to other anti-government groups in reaction against the overbearing treatment of their employers or in continuance of home teachings or the preaching of the American agitator, but they are all willing to accept the principles of the Constitution. It may well be questioned whether a larger percentage of them will be found in the socialist group than one would find among native born Americans of the same social and financial standing. As they in- crease in wealth the number of socialists among them certainly diminishes. The list of leaders among our most radical organization, the I. W. W., contains fewer foreign names than the proportion of the foreign population among the poorest paid groups would lead one to expect. As one talks casually with the foreigner of the working class, one finds a wealth of political ideas that are in harmony with the best in American political theory. During the first summer of the war, I remember hearing re- peated expressions from Scandinavian and southern Slav sheep herders in Wyoming of
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the opinion that the end of the war would bring a United States of Europe. I could not trace the idea to any common source, and individuals who spoke it were sufficiently far apart to make a common source unlikely. In all conversation with men who would be regarded at first sight as still foreigners, one finds an objection to monarchies as such and a preference for repub- lican or democratic institutions which, whether acquired during residence here or in Europe, argues well for respect and affection for our form of government and political ideals. Will- ingness to count as part of the social or na- tional group is much more important.
How far changes in ideals of a social sort, such as we have been enumerating, indicate or prove a change in the fundamental emotional attitude that would have political significance, is a problem of the utmost importance. At present its solution requires detailed knowl- edge of motives that neither the individuals themselves nor careful observers can supply. Opinions differ widely. Pessimists insist that the much vaunted "melting pot" has proved incapable of fusing the different national ele- ments into a homogeneous mixture, a single product that may be called American. Enthu- siasts for the effects of life in America, on the other hand, find evidence from approximately
the same facts for a belief that Americaniza- tion is as complete as could be expected, even, as has been said, that the new citizens may be more American than the Americans themselves. The differences seem to depend in part upon the prejudices of the authorities, in part upon the definition of Americanism or of nationality in general, probably in greater part upon the experience of the individual who passes the judgment.
An objective measure of the transfer of af- fection is difficult to obtain. Naturalization is a legal .rite and may be unaccompanied by the change of heart in which we are interested. It is generally accepted, as was said earlier in the chapter, that an alien not infrequently makes application for citizenship for the social or pecuniary rewards that go with it. On the other hand many who are thoroughly American in spirit neglect to take the legal steps and may even be accepted as citizens and vote for many years without realizing that the legal form has not been complied with. No single test is altogether adequate. Between two races or two civilizations likes and dislikes are always of parts and of phases, not of wholes. One may like the national ideals and dislike their application or the failure to realize them in action. One may be fascinated by the man-
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ners of a people and disgusted with their mor- als. On the other hand one may appreciate the necessity of fulfilling certain property obliga- tions, like paying taxes, without appreciating the political doctrines of the state.
Perhaps the simplest and on the whole the most satisfactory test is willingness to fight for one country against the other. That means a willingness to cut one's self off completely from the land of one's birth and to cause the death of one's own old neighbors and perhaps one's kin. Even this test is met in the present war by many of the citizens of the first gen- eration. Large numbers of the second and third have satisfied it with little or no hesita- tion, even if there may have been regret. In fact, for the citizens of the third generation who have not lived in a close community, po- litical or religious, one could hardly distinguish the man of German from the man of English or Scandinavian descent in his attitude towards the war. Where the individual has lived in a community where German customs have con- tinued, and the language is still spoken, or where the man is a teacher of German or a preacher in a German church or even the son of such a teacher or preacher, the feelings are likely to be mixed. Even of these a larger per- centage than would be expected were loyal.
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The clergyman and the teacher of German have been recognized propagandists of the German spirit as well as of the language and the gospel. It is not strange that they and their children persist as Germans when others have become Americans. A secondary allegiance undoubt- edly goes to America and were the enemy other than the fatherland, they would fight as well as another. Put ourselves in their places as residents of the second generation in Germany and one can see how little one would desire to face the ordeal of fighting against the home nation and possibly against relatives and friends.
Of the neutral nationalities one finds on the whole much the same willingness to fight that one does among the natives. Eesistance to the draft was found in surprisingly few cases, and then among individuals who did not speak the language well enough to know what it was all about or who were members of sects and par- ties that on principle did not believe in fight- ing. When the full statistics of the draft are published, as it is to be hoped that they will be, we shall have an interesting indication of the degree of de- and re-nationalization among the immigrants. Meantime if the accounts of court martials have any value and the names among the casualties overseas have any significance,
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we must admit that the optimist is nearer the truth than the pessimist. The citizens of for- eign descent have been converted into real members of the nation to a degree that few could have hoped.
While there are a number of instances of im- migrants, who have proved disloyal or less loyal than one could wish, it must also be remem- bered that much of what has been called dis- loyalty is based on political theory that would have made the individual disloyal to his own native country as well. Pacifists from convic- tion, socialists of long standing, and hired spies constituted the great majority of trouble makers and these found almost as many rep- resentatives among native and neutral citi- zens as among the alien enemies. Were one to imagine two million Americans permitted to live freely in Germany with as little police or military surveillance exercised over them as has been exercised here, we would be very much disappointed if there had been no more trouble than the United States experienced in the course of the war. In fact a similar expecta- tion was formed on the part of the less expe- rienced among German commentators. The hope for a revolution among the German- Ameri- cans had apparently been one of the stones in the foundation of the German military and
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political theory. Those among the Germans who had a better opportunity to observe the changes that came over the immigrant after a few years or decades of residence in America knew better. The German university profes- sors who saw students of the second generation returned to study have long marveled at the assimilative capacity of the American nation. As one said to me, "Children of German par- ents come back to us with names no longer Ger- man, with no knowledge of the language, ap- parently even trying to forget that they are German." That assimilation is the rule, per- sistence in the native tradition, the exception, is fairly evident from observation and from what few statistics we possess. Those who would expect more forget the failures of the native born, and overestimate the possible ef- fect of a few years' residence in a foreign land. While discussing the influence of change in residence upon nationality one must remember that occasionally at least the American may similarly change his affiliations. One need only mention Caspar Gregory's death in the Ger- man trenches and a few less conspicuous ex- amples of men of intelligence who as a result of residence in Germany espoused the German cause, although of definitely American or Eng- lish descent.
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The attitude of the returned immigrant as he is met upon his native soil is also significant in emphasizing impressions, if it is not to be regarded as furnishing convincing evidence. As a traveler in Greece during 'the Balkan war, I was much impressed by the enthusiasm of the returned Greek for America. One found them with small American flags on their Greek uniforms, their conversation was always of America and the superiority of things Ameri- can. They were loyal to Greece, too, and many of them had returned to fight to avoid losing their citizenship. Some, as they spoke of it, regarded it as an anchor to windward in case they should desire to return, some wanted to make secure the freedom of their country out of pure patriotism, in spite of the fact that they did not expect to return. All alike, whether they had been laborers or merchants in Amer- ica, whether they expected to be permanent residents or only to return to accumulate more wealth to be enjoyed in the home land, were imbued with the American spirit and were in- clined to place things American on a pedestal. What they spoke of most often was not the ideals of American political life, but the stand- ards of living, the increased comfort that is possible in America, and the higher wage which makes that possible. Coupled with this was
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the appreciation of an opportunity for advance- ment. Those who had succeeded were thankful for the chance, those who had not, hoped that their turn might come and were rejoicing in the anticipation. This personal freedom rather more than the abstract political freedom was most frequently mentioned.
The factors which further the change in na- tionality as an individual lives among a new people are in part identical with those that led to the development of the nation in history. The main difference lies in the fact that the ideals and resentment against oppression or actual hardship are more important in the his- torical development of a nation, while the for- mation of habits and the gentler influence of improvement of social conditions are of greater effect in inducing the individual to transfer allegiance. The ideals may cause the individual to emigrate and raise a presumption in favor of the adopted country. The most effective fac- tor of all is the gradual development of new standards of living, the acceptance of the stand- ards of the new home as applicable to himself. The change in ideals is accomplished in part through imitation of the model passively set, but more by the constantly effective pressure of the contempt of the older residents for the costumes and habits of the newcomer. The
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harsh attitude toward the foreigner is coupled with a kindly reception of the man who changes and equal opportunity before the law in busi- ness and property relations. This punishment of contempt for the old and the reward of will- ingness to receive as an equal the man who changes combine to impress the language, the styles, the size and location of the house, and finally political ideals and willingness to die for the new people of which he has become a part.
After the standards have been accepted under the influence of this double process of punish- ment for remaining alien and reward for assim- ilation, becoming emotionally and politically a part of the nation follows naturally and un- avoidably. The newcomer, who finds himself at first an outcast except among the immediate members of his old race, gradually accepts the customs and learns the language of the new country and as he does, finds that his lot is im- proved physically and socially. He is more and more accepted. If he had not decided to remain and become a permanent citizen he seri- ously considers it at this stage. He finds that his closest associates are with Americans, or at least that the ideals of American life have become his ideals. He in turn begins to look down upon the newcomer with his own old
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standards. With that acceptance of the nation as his nation, a desire for its continuance and prosperity over all other nations develops and with that goes willingness for self-sacrifice to further that end. Then, naturalization or na- tionalization is complete. Were he to be called upon to justify the changes in affiliation that have developed in this habitual way, the proba- bility is that he would find a reason for it in the phrases of liberty, opportunity, or the su- periority of our institutions. That these have had no effect cannot be asserted, but the great- er well-being and the formation of habits which make the continuance of the new life an essen- tial to happiness are probably much more im- portant.
CHAPTER VI
THE NATION AND THE MOB CONSCIOUSNESS
MODEEN writers without any important ex- ception unite in believing that nations are held together by mental rather than by physical or hereditary bonds. It is something in the spirit, not anything in the physical constitution or common ancestry that makes them one. Our discussion so far reenforces this belief, Exact- ly what the nature of the mental or spiritual process may be that unites, what it is that changes when a group of individuals becomes a nation, or what is altered in an individual when he transfers his allegiance from the Em- peror of Austria to the United States of Amer- ica, is not made so clear where any attempt is made to answer the problem at all. In a psy- chological study, such as we are attempting, it is this phase of the problem which must have the center of the stage. It is our task to de- cide what the mental processes are which are referred to so vaguely by the writers in history and political science. Zimmern1 defines na-
1 Zimmern : ' ' Nationality and Government, ' ' p. 96. 164
NATION AND MOB CONSCIOUSNESS 165
tionality as "a form of corporate conscious- ness of peculiar intensity, intimacy, and dig- nity, related to a definite home country." If we discount the relation to a definite home coun- try now and leave it to be discussed more seriously later, it would seem that all that we have is a corporate consciousness, which prob- ably means a consciousness of belonging to a common body or society. What this is, whether instinct or habit, and whether as consciousness it belongs under feeling, intellect or will, he does not say and probably for the problem he is interested in does not much care. For our purpose, however, it is just this that does mat- ter. We must attempt to discover if we can what this peculiar consciousness is and what its effects may be upon the action of the indi- viduals that feel or experience it.
Of the more definitely psychological theories we may select a few types for more detailed analysis to show what is characteristic of each and what all regard as essential to the nature of nationality. It must be said that some of the theories we are to discuss are almost as vague in their statements as those that we have just quoted. They are more picturesque in their analogies, but are quite as elusive when we attempt to discover what they really mean. Others are sufficiently definite in the compari-
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sons that they make, but the states or processes to which they compare the consciousness are quite as little known as the consciousness itself. Perhaps the most vivid and at the same time most widely known of the modern theories is Le Bon's, which is, in essentials, that a nation approaches a crowd in the nature of its con- sciousness and that a crowd induces in the indi- viduals who compose it a state peculiar to itself and allied to the hypnotic and other abnormal conditions. Examination of this theory implies an investigation of the nature of the mind of a mob in the first place and then of the ques- tion how far the nation resembles the crowd. Le Bon 2 insists that the man in the crowd is altogether transformed, that in considerable measure he loses all of his distinguishing char- acteristics of control, that he is fused with the other individuals to constitute a new mental unit. He speaks more or less pictorially of the process as one of giving over all of the ac- quired characters and getting back to the in- stincts which all men have in common just be- cause they are men. In these fundamental in- stincts they are little different from the beasts ; they descend to a lower level of culture and evolution. More definitely he compares the man in the mob to a man hypnotized. He as-
*G. Le Bon: "The Crowd," p. 11 et passim.
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serts that in both conditions the activity of the cortex is in abeyance and that the individual is controlled only by the action of the medulla. The neurology involved in this statement is archaic, if it were ever accepted, but we are less concerned with the detailed theory than with the description of the state and the condi- tions of the action. The test of the theory is the closeness of the resemblance between the man hypnotized and the man in the crowd. The stage of hypnosis that offers similarities is the somnambulistic. In this the patient is marked by susceptibility to suggestion in thought and action, and even in perception. The least com- mand is executed, however absurd it may seem. Any statement seems to meet with acceptance, and the patient will even see objects said to be present where nothing resembles them. Thus Binet could make a patient see a picture on a blank card, and when shown the same card when hypnotized on another occasion the pa- tient would again see the picture. The indi- vidual hypnotized seems also to have the emo- tions that are suggested to him. He will weep at command or when it is suggested by word or picture; he becomes angry when his fist is clenched or the command is given. He also will at suggestion assume a part and act it out consistently. An almost invariable symp-
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torn of this stage of hypnosis is that there is when wakened no memory of any of the hap- penings of the hypnotized period.
When we compare the action of the man in the crowd with this state we find many similari- ties and a few differences. It should be em- phasized that Le Bon would not ascribe this peculiar state to every crowd, but only to those under special conditions. He would say that men might gather without going into this con- dition, without becoming fused into the unity that submits each to the control of the whole. The existence of the peculiar condition does not depend upon the size of the crowd, but upon other attendant circumstances. At times the group goes into a trance, becomes hypnotized; at times the same group or another group of the same size might gather and the men in it remain normal. Le Bon has in mind the mob in action, as in the French or Russian Revo- lution* or any crowd indulging in riots. It is then that we see the individuals carried away with little thought and less control. There can be no question that under these conditions the individual will commit acts that he would despise when alone. The reduction of control is in the influence of the directive forces of ex- periences, the forces that constitute what we group under the term reason. In general, the
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instincts dominate, but in neither the hypno- tized condition nor in the mob is direction alto- gether abrogated. The limitations of ordinary morals and good taste are merely reduced. There is a point beyond which neither will go. The hypnotized patient will commit a play mur- der with a paper dagger, but will not stab with a real dagger. A mob will commit murder, as has happened altogether too often, but it does not do it unless it can find some reason that, in form at least, would satisfy a sane man in a quiet moment. The criminal is lynched be- cause the punishment of the law is not ade- quate. The bourgeoisie are destroyed for fear that they may again regain power and oppress the proletariat. Or this rich man deserves death, not that he has done anything him- self, but that he belongs to a class that has op- pressed and he will himself if occasion arises, or he must have injured some one or he would not have been so wealthy. The crowd acts be- cause it accepts these arguments, but in many cases the arguments are supplied by a leader, and the greater suggestibility of the mob is shown by the fact that they will see but the one side of the case which is presented by the oratorical leader, and that they are not in a condition to resist the tendency to believe an argument of the most fallacious type.
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The suggestibility of the mob extends to the perception processes as well. Innumerable cases are on record in which all of the members of a crowd will see what is suggested in spite of the fact that it has no existence in reality. We can find instances all through history in which armies in the excitement of a conflict or the fatigue of retreat have seen apparitions. St. George appeared to the crusaders on the walls of Jerusalem, and even in the last war there have been several occasions when a whole army has seen an apparition or apparitions. The best attested instance is perhaps the angels seen by the British on the retreat from Mons. The evidence for these hallucinations would easily find acceptance in a court of law unless questioned on a priori grounds. At other times St. George or St. Michael has been seen lead- ing the attack upon the enemy, or strange lights have been seen in the sky by a number of men and the sight has been accepted as a happy omen and inspired a successful charge. All of these visions must be regarded as collective hallucinations, started by some one man and extending to other members of the crowd. They are altogether similar to the collective hallu- cinations which are supposed to explain the Indian conjuring trick of making a tree grow before the eyes of a crowd or the other of throw-
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ing a rope into the air which extends out of sight and is climbed by a sailor or acrobat. All taken together show that on occasion, rather rare occasion, to be sure, an hallucination suf- ficiently vivid to lead to vigorous action may be induced in a crowd.
The changes in the emotions are as marked as are the changes in thought and action. In the crowd this is a subordinate phenomenon. The thought or the perception is suggested first and emotion and action follow. If we admit that there are similarities between the condi- tion in the crowd and in hypnotism, we must also admit that there are differences which are quite as striking. The man hypnotized to the state of somnambulism always forgets after waking what he did during the stage of hypnosis. In the crowd there is no such amnesia. The individual remembers all of his acts. The hypnotized man gives definite evi- dence of being in an abnormal state. He shows signs of the advent of the condition by groans, change in breathing, and sometimes muscular contractions that may approach slight con- vulsions. These are lacking in the development of the crowd consciousness. While the most skeptical critic would be compelled to admit that there are similarities between the crowd state and the hypnotic, the differences are quite
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as marked. One is justified in the statement that a man in the crowd is somewhat similar in his acts to the man hypnotized, not that he is hypnotized. The similarity is in the action, not in the state itself.
It has also been asserted that in the mob the individual is highly suggestible or that he is controlled altogether by imitation. The first of these theories states what is true of the hyp- notic theory. Not to make the man in the mob too different from the man in his ordinary life, it is well to emphasize the fact that in one sense all that we do is done through suggestion. Ee- duced to its simplest terms suggestion is noth- ing more than habit on the one hand and asso- ciation of ideas on the other. Give any man a stimulus that has been connected with a cer- tain movement and he will make that move- ment at once. Ask him a question and the an- swer that has been most frequently given will come to his mind and in most cases to his lips. Suggestion is nothing more. We use the term suggestion for the instances in which the re- sponse is more mechanical, when the suggested movements or ideas are opposed to rational in- terests or are more than usually uncontrolled. This statement that the individual is subject to suggestion is about all that is true in Le Bon's statement that a man in a mob is a man hypno-
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tized. It is only necessary to add that a man is always subject to suggestion and is more subject to it in the crowd than when alone.
The same may be said of imitation which has been made a law of social action by Tarde and many of his followers. The movement that is imitated furnishes a stimulus to action, sug- gests it, if we use the term discussed above. Imitation is only another form of suggestion. Of both it should be said that they attract at- tention only when the act or thought that they initiate is in some way different from the ordi- nary. Usually the movements and ideas are controlled by wider experiences, by what we or- dinarily know as will. In the crowd this con- trol is reduced. But the control is not alto- gether relinquished in favor either of imita- tion or of suggestion. The movement that shall be imitated is determined by the instinct of the individual and by his reason and all other fac- tors that control experience. Experiments on monkeys, supposed to be the most imitative of animals, show that they will not imitate every movement that they see, in fact the experi- ments so far made have never been able to show that a monkey can be taught to make a new movement by imitation. He may be shown a movement a great many times and make but slight effort to repeat and when he does try to
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repeat it is necessary for him to go through an elaborate try, try again process before he will succeed in doing what he has been shown. In the monkey and in man as well, imitation is successful only when the movement to be imi- tated has already been made before and is thoroughly known. Even then only those move- ments that promise desirable results will be imitated and if the results prove undesirable when obtained, the movement will not be re- peated. Imitation is not then really an inde- pendent force or condition of action, it is only the name for the result of a number of other forces. The result, not the cause, is empha- sized in the term. The only new feature and the only instinctive element in the fact of imi- tation is the instinct that was emphasized in an earlier chapter, that a man will be attracted by the action of his fellows, and will in conse- quence attend to their movements, and, second- ly, that there is an instinctive tendency to do what all others are doing. Imitation is only suggestion with the added effects of these two instinctive tendencies.
One must insist, then, that the same truth is at the basis of the three theories that describe the man in the mob as hypnotized, as acting under suggestion and as being controlled alto- gether by imitation. In hypnotism suggestion
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rules, and imitation is only suggestion in which the stimulus is the act of another man. If one object that in hypnotism suggestion is much stronger than it is in the normal state, we may answer that the man in the mob is not so com- pletely open to suggestion as the man hypno- tized. The principles of action of the man in the mob are the same as those of the man under ordinary circumstances. The suggestibility of the man in the mob is limited as is that of the normal man by instinct and by ideals or rea- son. One may even assert that the instincts of the men in the group are the essential forces in determining the character and degree of the action. When a mob is angry because of an act that arouses its sympathy for the victim and hatred of the aggressor, it will go to the great- est excesses at the slightest excuse. In this the responses are merely exaggerated by the presence of the other members of the mob. Should one attempt to induce the mob to run away at the sight of the atrocity, when no great danger threatened the members, the endeavor would be wasted. Should one at any time suggest to the mob some act that was in it- self ridiculous or was not in harmony with some one of the instinctive tendencies of the individuals there would be complete failure. More than likely all would break out in laugh-
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ter or in jeers and the mob would dissolve into its elements. Where the crowd has been trained by one man and accustomed to one set of acts, no matter how ridiculous, as happens in the ritual of certain religious or pseudo-religious sects, the ridiculous may become an accepted sign of unity, and be repeated without question. On the whole, however, only acts that are adapted to the situation and to the instincts of the crowd will be made. All that the leader can do in the most docile mob is to select one from among the possible instinctive responses. If a mob wavers between flight and aggression when each is in some degree appropriate, the act of a leader or of a part of the crowd will decide which course shall be adopted.
Again, these theories all assume that a mob is absolutely under the control of a leader, and some seem to believe that the leader works with full consciousness of what he is doing and even that he malevolently uses the crowd for his own purposes. This is at most only one side of the problem. The leader not merely exer- cises his will upon the crowd, but the crowd also works its will with him. One could quite as readily sustain the thesis that the leader has been hypnotized by the mob as that the mob has been hypnotized by the leader. If the statement can be made with some plausibil-
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ity that the members of the mob evidence an unwonted submissiveness to the leader, it may also be said that the leader exercises an abnor- mal aggressiveness. Any one who has even temporarily and in minor matters assumed the leadership of a crowd is in some degree aware of a change in his attitude or character. Even in addressing an audience, one feels at times an exaltation which one may imagine leaders to feel in a crisis. A practised speaker has an assurance before a sympathetic audience that h^ does not feel in his study, and will not in- frequently make statements that he would not make in writing. For many men the presence of an audience acts very much like wine, and in some the effects are deplorable. The perma- nent or temporary leader of a crowd is affected even more strongly. He becomes more impor- tant in his own eyes because of the position he holds. After he has overcome the first instinc- tive fear of the crowd that is felt by all of its members, he goes to the other extreme and takes courage from the group to attempt deeds that he would not dare alone, and would not plan for the crowd in a quiet moment. For good or for ill he rises to heights of which he is not ordinarily capable. He feels in himself the strength of the men he is leading and acts correspondingly.
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The leader also takes many of his beliefs and opinions from the crowd. He hears a cry of " lynch him," repeats the cry as if it were his own opinion, and takes the first step towards putting the man to death. Should he hear a plea for clemency he would be equally willing to lead a rescue. There is no weighing of evidence on his part, no real decision, only one side of the case presents itself and only one set of in- stincts has a chance for action. He is the em- bodiment, not merely of the executive force of the crowd but in large measure of its opinion, of its reason, and of its emotion as well. It is here that the ordinary fear of the crowd as- serts itself. While the leader is bold when he represents it against the opinion of the victim, particularly when it is expressed against a weak individual, he is a coward against the de- mand of the crowd itself. He does what it de- mands or what he thinks it demands with little or no question. Even Napoleon always feared to oppose or thwart a mob. It is this curious interdependence between the! leader and the crowd that contributes most to making the mob irresponsible. Each relies upon the other and makes the other take the blame for failure, while each is willing to ascribe any success to the leader. A member of a crowd may advo-
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cate a course of action or unite with the others in doing something of whose advisabil- ity he may be in doubt. The leader may be just as doubtful, but afraid to protest for fear of the mob. It is this that makes the action of the mob so irrational. Each suggestion is made more recklessly than it would be in private, it is also only slightly weighed, for each throws the responsibility for the act upon some one else or upon the crowd as a whole.
The activity of the crowd and of the leader in the crowd is primarily an expression of the social instincts, particularly of the instinct that makes the individual subordinate himself to the opinions and beliefs of the whole. It is this that makes the crowd act as if hypnotized and also makes suggestion and imitation so impor- tant. What makes the crowd different in its action from the action of a society in its quieter moods of comparative isolation is the fact that the ideals and conventions do not exercise their ordinary restraints. As has been emphasized in earlier chapters, instinct is usually subor- dinated to formulated rules of conduct which have been developed in various ways and tested by long experience. These decide between the simple instincts, where they are in conflict, and select those which have proved most adequate to similar situations in the past. At the same
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time these ideals of conduct have the impelling effect of instincts because of the general in- stinctive respect for the opinions of society when formulated in convention as well as when expressed in words or in acts of the group im- mediately present to sight and hearing. In brief, then, these theories which would explain the acts of the crowd by hypnosis, imitation, or suggestion, are but expressions of our earlier described general principles of instinct and ideals. It is only that in the crowd the ef- fects of the social instincts induced by the bodily presence of the crowd dominate over the slowly acquired and tested ideals and so produce what we call uncontrolled action.
Finally, admitting what there is left that is peculiar to the action of the crowd, how far is a nation as a whole similar in its action to the crowd? Le Bon and Tarde make certain asser- tions with reference to the action of the crowd and then without more ado apply the same laws to the action of a nation or of a people. If this were altogether fair, either there is nothing really peculiar about the crowd, or the nation is in itself an abnormal social entity or organ- ization. A little consideration will show that it is only on rare occasions, if at all, that the laws of the crowd are also the laws of action of the nation. Le Bon guards himself at the
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beginning of his discussion by the statement that it is only infrequently that the mob really fuses into a new entity, only when its cerebral action is in abeyance and the action of the me- dulla obtains prominence. This happens only at moments of great excitement. These mo- ments must be very rare in the life of the na- tion. The means of communication are not suf- ficiently rapid for the whole of a great state to be fused into one and to be dominated by a single impulse, except on rare occasions. When the Maine was sunk in Havana harbor a wave of emotion spread over the United States, very much as an emotion might spread in a crowd, and the authorities were compelled to declare war against the will of most of the responsible statesmen. Something of the same kind oc- curred at the time of the sinking of the Lusi- tania, but the effect was less immediate, prob- ably because it was only one of a series of events of ever increasing atrocity. The na- tion's decision in favor of war was made more deliberately and rationally in accordance with the evidence.
For the most part the nation thinks as a sane individual in isolation thinks. The various in- stinctive responses that would impel to opposed actions neutralize each other, and while it would be an optimist or a blind man who would assert
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that the decisions have close approximation to perfection even in the best organized of na- tional states, the final decisions usually attain the level of the average intelligence of the men who compose the group. This hesitation is due partly to the slow means of communication and the balancing of different reactions to the same situation by men in different parts of the coun- try, partly to the action of established conven- tion, and partly, in the modern state, to the ef- fects of party government. Nearly every situa- tion tends to arouse more than one instinctive response. In our lynching mob, sympathy for the victim or anger at his deed are both possi- ble reactions, but the mob as a whole will make but one of these reactions and will be but little affected by the other possibility. In the nation that hears of the event only by rumor or reads of it in the papers, one emotion is aroused in one group, another in another. By the time a decision has been reached through reconciling opposed opinions there is a balanced judgment which neutralizes strong suggestions.
Conventional ideals also have the same effect. They are to be deprecated as preventing rapid advance and frequently preventing advance al- together, but at the same time they do prevent excesses that result from immediate uncon- trolled instinctive responses. They may be the
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result of experience at a relatively low stage of development, but the instinctive responses for the most part represent responses in the pre- human period, are remnants of a still more rudimentary condition. The conventional meth- ods of procedure in reaching decisions of a so- cial type compel delay, and while they prevent rising to a possible best, they also save society from the possible worst. The influence of party government, even more than the local differ- ences of opinion prevents the domination of the nation by one set of instincts, or by one form of impulses. Each party is skeptical of the opinions of the other and questions on prin- ciple any statement made and any action ad- vocated by the other. This means that the op- posing considerations are sure to be heard, and decision will follow upon consideration of more than one aspect. A nation will be carried away by impulse only on some question that has not been a party matter. Even new questions are likely either to be similar to familiar is- sues, or are made party measures because the men who suggest them belong to a party and so arouse opposition and discussion.3
The only place where national affairs might be settled as the mob settles them is in the na-
*Cf. A. Lawrence Lowell: "Public Opinion and Popular Government," p. 96.
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tional assembly. Even here the mob spirit is seldom in evidence. The member is in the first place really representative. He knows that what he does must be passed upon by his con- stituency, and that reelection depends upon doing what they will accept, even if one decision has not yet been advocated by them. The mass of his partisans at home restricts his freedom of judgment and prevents him from being led away by the suggestions of his colleagues, the members of the immediately present crowd. The rules of procedure with their requirements of votes at different times and by different houses also make impossible or unlikely an un- thinking decision. While at times one sees in the assembly evidence of the effect of the crowd, that is only on unimportant matters or at the most only in periods of crisis, when the legis- lature consciously defers to the individuals who are responsible for decisions. Again the party system is active in checking too hasty action, sometimes even in delaying desirable action. The presumption that any suggestion from the opposing party must be wrong inhibits any too sudden influence that it might have and, if no other factor were at work, would prevent the assembly from becoming a mob in Le Bon's sense of the term. While, then, we must do justice to the im-
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portance of Le Bon's discussion upon many modern theories and accept some of his con- clusions regarding the influences that are active in the control of crowds and even of peoples, we cannot accept his views as they are stated. The crowd is not made up of hypnotized indi- viduals, nor is suggestion alone the explanation of its acts. Suggestion in one sense explains all human acts, but it is not the machine-like form of suggestion that Le Bon attributes to the mob. All action is due to suggestion, but to suggestion controlled by ideals and conven- tionalized wider experience. Due to the instinc- tive effect of the other men present, this con- trol is less when the man is in the mob than when he is in isolation. We must insist, too, that what slight difference really exists between the isolated individual and the man in the crowd is not in evidence in the collective activity of the nation, or can be observed only on rare oc- casions of great excitement. The nation is not a mob, even when we grant much less of the abnormal to the action of the mob than Le Bon insists that it has. We shall attempt in the next chapter to discover how the nation really does think and feel and act.
CHAPTER VII
THE NATIONAL MIND AND HOW IT THINKS, FEELS, AND ACTS
IN the last chapter we reached the negative conclusion that while the nation has many of the characteristics of the mob it is not a mob, nor is the mob so instinctive in its acts as Le Bon and others assert. Still there are laws that control the activities of the nation and there are theories that would assign to the na- tion a mind very much as mind is assigned to the individual. These theories have something in common with the doctrines of Le Bon. They differ from it mainly in that they regard the mind of the nation as a more highly developed mind, more like the mind of a sane, normal in- dividual than of a man hypnotized. We may examine this theory and in connection with it attempt to discover how the nation thinks, even if we cannot accept the theory that we are ex- amining.
The analogy on which many of these theories are based is the somewhat mystical one that the nation possesses a super-individual mind,
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that by living together the members of a na- tion in some way develop an actual new mind that is related to the bodies of the individuals in very much the same way that the mind of the individual is to the cells of which his body is composed. This is a perfectly good analogy. One frequently speaks of the body as a colony of cells, each of which is an independent unit save for its dependence upon the whole for its nutrition, and for certain of its stimuli. Simi- larly, one might argue, the individuals are in- dependent when apart, but when they come to- gether there is in some way developed or gen- erated a group of phenomena that is common to all of them. The voluntary and emotional processes are more prominent in this complex, the rational and sensory components are little in evidence if they are not altogether lacking. The will of the group dominates the will of the individual, if the latter has any place in the action of the group at all.
Many facts can undoubtedly be made to har- monize with this assumption. Yet it suffers from two defects if it is intended as more than a vague analogy. In the first place the relation of the individual consciousness or mind to the separate cells is by no means so clearly known or understood as one would like to have it. All that we know is that in some way the in-
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dividual is conscious, and that the physical or- ganism on which that consciousness depends is a mass of separate cells. We know nothing, however, of any consciousness in the cells and we have only indirect evidence of the way in which the consciousness of the whole individual depends upon the activities of the different cells. To explain the consciousness of the so- cial whole in terms of the relation of the indi- vidual consciousness to separate elements is to attempt an explanation by means of something that is itself far from fully known.
If one may assert that we have no direct knowledge of the consciousness of the separate elements in the organism of the individuals, it must also be asserted that we have no imme- diate evidence for the existence of a super-con- sciousness or over-soul in the group or in so- ciety. Each individual is aware of his own con- sciousness, may be aware that his own con- sciousness or his behavior is modified when he is in a crowd or is acting in a group, but no one knows immediately the consciousness of the crowd apart from this modification of the minds of the individuals who compose it. The crowd has no means of expression apart from the lan- guage of its members. One knows what a na- tion believes only from the assent of its mem- bers to general propositions ; one knows of the
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emotions of the crowd only from the emotional expression of the individuals. There is no pos- sibility of communicating with the soul of a na- tion other than by way of the souls of its ele- ments and these can never be sure that they are accurately representing the over-soul. One can go beyond only by means of the plebiscite and that seldom speaks with unanimity in de- tail, however close may be the community of sentiment as regards general principles. That, too, gives only the opinions of the separate ele- ments, not the belief of the over-soul as such.
One might abandon the attempt to discover a super-consciousness directly, as has been done by one school of psychologists for the individual consciousness, and endeavor to discover simi- larities between the action of the group and the action of the individual. This would not give any evidence of a super-consciousness because the theory denies the existence even of the in- dividual consciousness, but it does permit one to speak of a social organism, or of a social en- tity, in a way that is free from many of the ob- jections raised above. One can admit that the mob or the nation intensifies the instincts of the individuals, that the group behaves as if it had a guiding intelligence above and in addition to the intelligences of the separate individuals. This would permit the use of the term national
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spirit. It would not, however, justify its use as a warrant for acts that would not be permit- ted of themselves. The German philosophers since Hegel have spoken as if a nation, par- ticularly the German nation, were the embodi- ment of a special spirit of divine or mysterious origin and as if the advancement of this spirit were demanded for the improvement not only of themselves but of the world. The Germans are to be regarded like the Jews of the Old Testa- ment as a peculiar people, with a national spirit that is in an unusual if not exclusive degree the embodiment of the divine influence, and which must be advanced at the expense of doing violence to all human instincts. What matters a series of murders or debaucheries of the Bel- gian population! God has decreed that the spirit of the German people must spread over and dominate the world. What boots the suf- fering of the uncultured provided only that all makes for the attainment of this divine end! Such deductions as this would have no standing. The national spirit is not an entity which may be assumed to exist independently of its expres- sion; on the contrary, it is merely an analogy by which certain acts and beliefs of the group have been expressed or explained. The exist- ence of the spirit is justified only in so far as it explains observed facts. It may not be used
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as an established principle to prove assump- tions or to justify courses of conduct in them- selves made reprehensible.
If we make the tentative assumption that the social whole may be regarded as an entity apart from or added to the individuals who compose it, it is interesting to enumerate the qualities or forms of behavior that distinguish it. If we are to write a psychology of nations, it may be well to discuss our phenomena under the heads used in the traditional individual psy- chology. First, we have no chapter to write on sensation and little on perception. The social whole has no new means of acquiring knowl- edge. The sense organs of the group are the sense organs of the members. All that the group may add is a readiness to interpret the contributions of the senses in harmony with the suggestions received from the others. As was said in the last chapter, a group is more easily deceived than the individual, since each tends to accept the statement of another. The first man, if misled, passes the mistake on to the others. Of course, if a sceptic or accurate observer be the first to announce his opinion, the group will see clearly and will be less open to mistake than the average individual. The mistakes of the group are more striking if not more frequent than the mistakes of the indi-
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vidual. Perhaps they are more striking be- cause shared by so many, and for that reason are so likely to be accepted as fundamentally true. Certain it is that, on occasion, individuals in a crowd will be subject to illusions that they would not have fallen into if alone.
Much the same may be said of the thinking of the nation. The thinking is always of the in- dividual but the acceptance is determined by the group. In a popular assembly it may truly be said that the final arbiter of thought is the group, not the individual. Suggestions are made by the speaker or writer. These are passed upon by all hearers or readers and as they are accepted or rejected, the group decides upon their truth. For practical purposes it makes them true until actual test may confirm or dis- prove them. In many cases, test is long de- layed or the results of tests are not correctly interpreted so that the decision of the group stands as the truth in the face of fact. Most thinking is limited by the accuracy of major premises and, as the premises are not open to careful, unprejudiced examination, acceptance depends upon universal agreement or popular acclaim. Belief in the right to domination of the German state could never be disproved to a German by argument. It is an accepted major premise and can be eliminated only by misfor-
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tune to the government or the death of the peo- ple. A good Republican in the United States is not open to argument on the subject of pro- tection. Even facts have no effect upon him. The superiority of a protective system is a major premise established by generations of popular speakers and probably by the self-in- terest of the dominant elements. The good Democrat has similar major premises, equally irrefutable. Facts have no effect upon the loyal partisan. Similarly, the true socialist believes in the existence as a conscious group of a capi- talistic class and in the essential malevolence of that class towards all labor.
Study of the process by which these premises are developed and the use made of them shows that the process is in most respects the same for the group or class as for the individual. The premises are partly the expression of pre- judices accepted from parents. In many cases these were essential to the existence of the group in the past and have survived in spite of changing conditions. The continuance for so long of autocratic government is an instance in point. Possibly the dominance of the lord or chief was essential to the satisfactory leading of the men of the tribe, and continuance of the leadership through heredity was more certain than any form of election when the machinery
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of selection had not been developed and accept- ed. Any unitary leadership was better than none and because of the tendency to transmis- sion of capacities from father to son hereditary continuance of the leadership was on the whole advantageous. Confidence in the leadership of old families continues to the present on the con- tinent at least and it is only with difficulty that proved ability in a new family will be recog- nized. Many major premises in politics, in re- ligion, and even in science can be traced in a similar way to general statements that har- monized with the practices and could not be re-, futed by the experience of earlier times and which now continue of their own inertia or through the mental inertia of mankind.
Major premises that are established anew in a generation owe their appearance at times to the initiative of experimental workers. Now that science is given a free hand much, if not most, of the advance comes from that source. Premises established by science are always wel- comed and need no defense. Society is con- vinced by the successful invention and the com- forts that come as a result of the success. Yet not all of the most fully established results of scientific investigation can establish or maintain themselves against prejudice. This is perhaps most striking in medicine where there is great-
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est difficulty in distinguishing between the effect upon a single individual and the general results as determined by statistics. The prevalence of the use of patent medicines, of the use of con- coctions handed down from grandparents and long shown to have no value, and the prevalence of Christian Science and other healing cults is striking evidence of this tendency for old be- liefs to stand against scientific knowledge. Laws established in physics and chemistry, where each test gives the same result, are less affected by popular prejudice. What any one can try is accepted. Statements resting upon collection of statistics or determined by condi- tions that act irregularly are more open to popular doubt.
Study of the way major premises in the fields of religion or health or in politics come to be established affords the best evidence of the methods of affecting the beliefs of a nation. One of the most important in its effects is the desire to believe, the instinctive pleasure given by the belief. The complete acceptance of the Tolstoian and Marxian doctrines by the prole- tariat of Russia and the consequent belief in the designing cruelty of the capitalist offers one of the best instances of this effect. The men who were convinced are for the most part rela- tively uneducated, although education probably
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has little effect upon the spread of doctrines or the reasoning of the populace, and also were undoubtedly suffering from lack of many neces- sities of life, probably the most essential cir- cumstances. The doctrine of Tolstoi was pro- mulgated by a man of the upper class, who had the prestige of social position and accepted in- telligence. His doctrines were based upon a first-hand knowledge of the facts. Where he described the actual situation his statements could be checked by individual experience and seen to be accurate. The scheme promised re- lief, was based upon a conception of human na- ture highly flattering to the common man. In short, it was a doctrine that he desired to be- lieve, and to arouse the desire to believe takes the hearer a long way on the road to belief.
The rest was done by iteration and reitera- tion of the relatively simple principles until they became familiar to every man in Russia, however ignorant. It corresponded to the in- stinctive desires of every peasant in his mud hut to think that he might have the power of the lord at the manor, and that when he had it he would use it to the benefit of himself and of all mankind. Every time his sympathy was excited by a hungry child he would think that when he and his kind were in power there would be food for every one. He could satisfy his
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sympathies by a thought, by a dream, at no ex- pense to himself. Each time he saw himself imposed upon by a wealthier or more powerful man he took his vengeance in the thought that when the revolution came that man would no longer have more than he had himself. He satisfied his vengeful instincts as he did his sym- pathetic by the imagination of the good time to come when the theory was realized. No won- der that the doctrines were accepted. As a re- sult of the propaganda the name of Tolstoi as well as his doctrines were familiar to all. Since the doctrines were themselves pleasant, even if out of harmony with the best results of their reasoning, th^y were inclined to idealize Tol- stoi, the author, that they might be the more certain of his conclusions. Talk even with an intelligent Russian of the proletariat and he will quote Tolstoi as a final authority in politi- cal economy as the old Puritan did his Bible. What he says is not open to question. If an observation does not harmonize with his state- ment, something must be wrong with the ob- servation. The doctrines of socialism, par- ticularly as stated by Tolstoi, had become a major premise for all social and political think- ing in Russia. One is always inclined to glorify the men whose opinions one desires to believe, that one may be spared the trouble of coming
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to a conclusion for one's self or the unpleas- antness of doubt.
All reasoning of the nation is limited to the acceptance or rejection of suggestions made by individuals. As a mind, the nation as a whole originates nothing, it can do no more than ac- cept or reject. In this the unintelligent mob or the nation as a whole is not so very different from the self-selected body of learned indi- viduals who pursue any science. The theories are all worked out by individuals, but the con- clusions are accepted and become part of the science only in so far as they are accepted by the somewhat vaguely limited body of men rec- ognized as authorities in that field. One could probably cite instances in which the conclusions were accepted because one desired to believe them, or because there was no other statement on the point and any opinion or decision was better than none. One might even allege with some semblance of truth that scientists incline to vaunt the prowess and genius of the men who hold views that they desire to believe and thereby establish the reputation of the man at the same time that they give vogue to a doctrine or theory. Certainly the advance of thought in the most abstruse and accurate sciences and in philosophy is like the growth of the opinions of the populace in that the theory is always
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first outlined by some one man, is then accepted by the skilled group and becomes the orthodox theory or belief.
The difference between the mob and the indi- vidual lies in the more critical attitude of the latter. The individual believes what he desires to believe, but only within limits. The limits are set by the experience of the individual. A statement directly contrary to the individual's experience will be rejected. In the social group if its members can find the vaguest analogy for the statement in the facts of experience, the pleasant will be accepted as true. The heal- ing cults take advantage of the well-known fact that fear of a disease predisposes to it in cer- tain cases, or at least may make recovery slower or more difficult, to generalize in the form that disease is an illusion and pain a product of a diseased mind. All advocates of a political Utopia find analogies in present facts for their beneficent state. If they can find no analogy they will at least put their promises on a plane where no practical test is possible.
While in general the nation tests the theories presented to it in the same way that the sepa- rate individuals do, and the conditions of belief are the same for the rabble as for the select group of scholars, the nation is more credulous towards the desired conclusions. This is true,
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first, because the credulity of the group tends to become that of the weakest member. When one believes and announces his belief he adds to the authority of the statement. While one man does not necessarily count for as much as another in the opinion of the multitude, each counts for something and each convert is a new argument with the propagandist and an added bit of evidence to the man trembling on the brink of conviction. Second, society, because of this acceptance of the opinion of the others, goes more quickly and thoroughly either by its reason or its instinct or experience as the case may be. If the populace finds a syllogism that will suit its purpose, experiences will not turn it from its deductive conclusion. When the Rus- sian revolutionists decreed that all officers were brutal and must perish, they killed the kindly with the known despots; the old habits of dis- cipline, once broken, seemed to exaggerate the license rather than to restrain it. When it was decided that the aristocrats should be robbed, no cessation of robbery occurred when they had been reduced to a state below that of the rob- bing peasants. All was taken. In this way the mob, and the nation, in less degree, is single minded. On the other hand, when isolated ex- periences favor the conclusion that has been suggested and is desired, no heed is taken of
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general principles. The Christian Scientist or the devotee of Peruna is content with the fact that a relative has recovered under the treat- ment and is little concerned to know what gen- eral principles would make the recovery possi- ble. In this sense the nation or the group is more likely to accept the evidence of a single observation or relatively few experiences in the face of lack of general principles, or even in opposition to general principles, and also to accept a syllogism when its conclusion is in con- flict with observations, than is the average of the individuals who compose it. One takes courage for the satisfaction of his desires from the reasoning of others. He excuses his care- lessness by reference to the general acceptance. But one can find instances of the same ten- dency in the most scholarly and refined works. When an author is hard put to discover a major premise that will justify a conclusion, he almost invariably falls back upon the phrase "it is uni- versally agreed among the most eminent scien- tists or philosophers," or in a more popular gathering he will assert "we all know this" or ' ' it is generally agreed. ' ' Where he can prove his point by particular evidence he does ; where he cannot, he pretends to rely upon the proofs of others. Such an argument is always suspect, but you find it in nearly every popular speech,
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in every political address, in almost every ser- mon, in most theological treatises, and in nearly all abstruse metaphysical arguments. One must admit also that it is occasionally made use of in scientific treatises, when the writer de- parts from experimentally verified fact.
One must admit that the nation thinks in this loose way for the most part only in moments of excitement and even then there are always some who are not misled. Each nation or at least each party in a nation has certain major premises that are not open to argument for which the laws of reasoning outlined above will hold. On other subjects the same groups will be perfectly rational, or as nearly rational as human limitations permit. During national crises the mass becomes organized as a mob and the domination by the majority is nearly com- plete. During a war, the Great War at least, doubt of the final success is not permitted, nor is any question of the justness of the national position. Aside from these repressions of opin- ion demanded by the practical necessities, many abstract principles thoroughly accepted before the war cannot obtain a hearing. One who questions the universality of cruelty among the enemy is not granted a hearing. The hopes for a lasting peace and the believers in a possible abolition of war by universal agreement are
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laughed to scorn. The individuals who have kept an eye on economy of expenditure lose all of their influence, and any recognition of the usual sympathy for the foe is taken as a sign of weakness or of hostility to the nation's ends and desires. This is partly, no doubt, an ex- pression of the necessity for unity in action against the foe. When there is no outside dan- ger, internal differences seem important and can be pushed to the extreme ; when war comes and the external dangers are great, lesser diffi- culties recede into the background. It is the- greater hate which conquers the less. This willingness to give over the lesser belief for the greater in moments of crisis constitutes the characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon that makes it possible for them to maintain themselves as a free people. The Poles, on the other hand, have always shown when free, that the internal hatreds, hatred of opposing political parties, are more important than the external. Even in a crisis they persist in fighting the other party in the state more than the common foe. In con- sequence they divide and are conquered. The same is said of the Slavic communities in this country. They can seldom keep up social or religious organizations because of the fre- quency of the internal feuds. In any nation, even in emergencies, a mi-
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nority will continue to exist and if it does not express itself it is from fear of the consequences or from a belief that to do the wrong thing is better than to do nothing. The Irish question was recognized as unsettled during the Great War, even if the division which threatened be- fore the war to lead to a revolution was not per- mitted to influence the policy of the great par- ties. Similarly the jealousy between Prussia and Bavaria was quieted apparently and all worked together for the common cause. There is a latent minority ready in all countries to advocate disarmament and some form of inter- national agreement for settling conflicts which will undoubtedly find expression now that the treaty of peace is actually signed.
In the ordinary life of the nation, political doctrines are discussed much as they are in a club. The alternatives suggest themselves and are weighed by the individual. On many ques- tions there is never agreement, and on few is there complete agreement. One aspect appeals to one group and is reiterated by that group on all occasions. Each different aspect has its ad- herents, and action depends upon counting votes, not by attaining even approximate unanimity. The reasons that control belief are approximately those that would appeal to the individuals, that do in fact appeal to the indi-
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viduals. These are first, the instincts, which determine primarily what one desires to be- lieve ; second, tradition in the community, which not only influences desire but also determines what one shall believe to be true; and, finally, the experience of the individual, including the results of personal observation and reports from others on experiments and observa- tions. In the process of development of belief, new observations are brought in by written con- tributions or by the speaker on the platform or in the political assembly, and the possible interpretations of the facts and their most prob- able bearing upon the course of future action are considered. All these influences serve to modify the conclusion of the individuals and of the group as the sum of individuals. In all of this the nation thinks only as the individuals that compose it think. To be sure the indi- vidual would not think as he does were he not a member of the nation, just as he would not think as he does did he not possess the instincts that he does. But the suggestions all come from individuals, the acceptance of the suggestion is by the individuals. As Cooley has said, all thinking, even the most individual, is a social process, but it is social as a cooperation of in- dividuals not as a process in a super-individual mind. Only in moments of great excitement is
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the thought of the individual in a nation pro- foundly different from what the thinking would be of a man in a medium as little social as pos- sible, the thinking of the traditional hermit, e. g., whose society is the written communica- tions of past generations. Even then, the pro- cess is the same as ever, the only difference is in the greater prominence of the instinctive ele- ments, and the tendency for the loudly pro- claimed conclusions of the few to dominate the belief of the many.
It is in the field of action and feeling that the group most nearly approaches an individual en- tity in its organization. If we return to our an- alogy with the individual, it is the voluntary processes and the closely interrelated emotional processes that may be most easily studied by the objective method. In fact, even in the indi- vidual, aside from a little more definite knowl- edge of motives, one knows about as much about acts and emotions in another as in one's self. Even the motives are not always more clear to the actor than to the observer. The action of the crowd is merely the action of the individuals that compose it. The individual movement de- pends upon the reception of a stimulus. This stimulus arouses the movement most frequently connected with it, its habitual response, or an instinctive response. When several responses
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compete, as when the most frequent response would produce an effect obviously undesirable, selection must be made between them. It is here alone that conscious guidance is of value or is effective in any degree. Even in the individual this guidance is exerted first by other stimuli which are also affecting the man at the mo- ment, or by consideration of the desirability of the probable effects of the acts. These effects are desirable either because they have a direct instinctive appeal, or have an appeal that is in- directly instinctive, because they are approved by the society in which the man lives. To act in a way to meet social approval is instinctively agreeable.
The acts of a nation are controlled by the same laws. The difference is to be found, first, in the belief that a nation may make right what would be wrong for an individual. This can be seen in the mere fact of war. A nation may kill by the wholesale, although killing is for- bidden to the individual under other circum- stances. This is, of course, in part a survival, in part it seems to be a matter of necessity. In connection with war a nation will justify what the individual without casuistry would not. The atrocities in Belgium were based on the deliber- ate theory that terrorism was the easiest way to conquer and to repress revolt. Coupled with
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this there seems to have been a belief that all tortures inflicted upon women or children, upon prisoners and defenseless men were done to the glory of the fatherland and so were to be ex- cused if not glorified. The looting and rape were a suitable reward for men who were sacri- ficing everything for the fatherland. The peculiar conditions and the general approval of the country excused the most revolting exhibi- tion of primitive instincts.
The nation, like the mob, may by the common approval of what would ordinarily be con- demned, make possible acts that would not be possible to the single man. The belief that the survival of the nation is more important than the survival of any individual has been used not infrequently to justify acts for which the in- dividual could find no warrant. This exalta- tion of the nation makes a matter of pride what otherwise would be most reprehensible. The soldier is esteemed for an act no more es- sential than that for which the hangman is held in contempt. In this sense, the will of the na- tion enforced by slowly developed ideals and ambitions controls the acts — may at times be said pictorially to constitute the will of the in- dividual. In this sense will means no more than the system of ideals that impel or justify
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the action. The real execution is by relatively few members.
The nearest approach in modern times to the actual movement of the nation as a whole is seen in the registration for the draft in Great Britain and America. Both of these countries had abhorred any interference with the will of the individual. Only when the crisis came that could be met in no other way, was compulsory service resorted to in Great Britain. America profited by the experience of Great Britain at once on entering the war. In both countries the response was direct and immediate, with practically no necessity for resort to compul- sion. Individuals as a whole appreciated the fairness of a selection on the basis of capacity for service, and obeyed the first summons with pride. Here again national ideals may be said to have provided the motives and impelling force, while the .acts were performed by numer- ous individuals. After all, the motives are the essential elements in the initiation of any ac- tion. They constitute what is essentially the will of the individual. When they are shared by a nation as a whole and result in action by a large proportion of the members, it might be said that they constitute action of the whole as truly as some central idea, which excites the
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motion of certain muscles of the body, consti- tutes the will of the single man.
In moments of excitement the individual in the nation is like the individual in the crowd in so far as he is more likely to accept the ideals and aims as his own than he would be were he alone. But it is inconceivable that he ever should be alone, and all that we have as an out- come of the discussion of the will of the nation is that the will is a result of the action of com- mon ideals upon the separate individuals who compose the nation, that, while the individual accepts these ideals because they appeal to his judgment, they appeal to his judgment because he is part of the nation, and both judgment and action are an expression of the social instincts and of the fact that the man has been reared and been trained in a nation.
In the acts of the nation in ordinary times when the individuals are not in sight of each other, even this exaggeration of normal laws is not present. The opinion of the nation is en- forced through the papers, but these present urgings to opposed actions as often as proclaim the unanimous decision of the whole. It is only in the popular assemblies that there is any op- portunity for the action of the forces peculiar to the mob, and in well ordered democracies, these assemblies are seldom controlled by the
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acts of their fellows. They constantly remem- ber the fact that they are responsible for re- election to their distant constituencies, and they try rather to formulate in their speeches what they believe to be the opinions of those distant and scattered individuals than to act on the spur of the moment under the influence of their fellows exerted either in speeches or in the quiet conversation of the committee room or lobby. Even the French Assembly in the Revo- lutionary period was affected only by the phys- ical presence of the mob, rarely by the eloquence of its own members. The acts of the nation show no greater evidence of a common mind or common will than do the acts of the individual. The acts all start with some individual, are taken up and executed by other individuals. There is no more a common will in the specific sense than there is a common arm or a common trunk.
In the metaphorical sense most of the acts of individuals whether in the crowd or separately are determined by social influences. The ideals that determine the individual are the ideals of the nation or the community. This means on strict analysis that they are ideals that have been stated by some one man, accepted by many others, and now pass practically unques- tioned. They are enforced by the approval of
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acts that conform to them by the majority of individuals. Failure to live up to them and, more definitely, action in opposition to them is punished by disapproval. Approval and disap- proval again are often expressed in very indefi- nite ways. It may be no more than the shrug of the shoulders as a friend tells what he has done. In the crowd the offender may be hooted at or cheered. In most cases the individual is influenced more by what he thinks other indi- viduals are thinking or might be thinking than by what is said or done. This control is the more effective in that it works in advance of action. All that the nation does is to express more clearly the ideals that are latent in all. Again only in moments of excitement will the whole completely dominate the units and then only through the force of the social instincts acting in greater strength because of the visi- ble presence of the members of the group.
The emotions of the crowd, too, are the emo- tions of the individuals. True again that the emotions of a man are easily aroused when he becomes part of a gathering. When the au- dience is fully under control a speaker can arouse laughter by a story or remark that would seem in none too good taste when spoken by an individual of the group. The enthusiasm of a crowd in a good cause and the anger or venge-
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ful spirit of the crowd in a bad cause are like- wise aroused more easily than are similar emo- tions in a small group or tete-a-tete. If we ac- cept the modern notion that emotion is funda- mentally only a slight movement, and a move- ment instinctively determined, it would follow that emotion, too, is always an individual pro- cess, but an individual process that would be particularly susceptible to exaggeration by the presence of the crowd. This we find in prac- tice. As applied to the nation, the emotions are obvious expressions of the instinctive responses to the common appeals of ideals, and of all the endeavors of the group. One thrills at the story of the attainments of one's fellow-countrymen, as one does not for similar deeds of foreigners ; one feels the glow of exhilaration as one is called to increased endeavor for the nation, whether in the armed conflict, in better citizen- ship, or in self-denial for the benefit of the com- mon cause. While the glow is due to the changes in the body of each individual, the cause of the response is to be found in the community of ideals and in the inherited nervous connections of each individual. The emotions in the nation are an expression of the social instincts, a direct indication of the tendencies to act induced by the sight and thought of the group. They are not new phenomena of the social life, but mere-
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ly the way in which the individual becomes di- rectly conscious of the fact that he is a social being — is descended from a race that has acted with his fellows and is now likely to respond in certain ways in common with them.
In one other sense does the nation become an emotional unit. It becomes the center of ref- erence for many common emotions. The mod- ern psychologist, since James wrote in 1884, has emphasized the fact that emotions are in- stincts regarded from within, that as the ob- server sees a man respond in certain ways under the influence of inherited tendencies, the man himself feels these responses and many others too slight to be noticed by the observer as masses of slight movements. If we group these instincts as those which come with fur- therance of activity and those which arise from the thwarting of activity, the one pleasant, and the other painful, we find that in the individual the helpful or hindering character comes to be associated not with the benefit to the physical being, but with the expansion or contraction of one's notion of one's self, a pure ideal. One is hurt when one does not obtain the expected end, one is pleased when one develops more than this anticipated amount. It is one's notion of one's self as a whole which is furthered or checked. Most emotions are aroused in the
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modern individual by factors which affect this imaginary entity.
With the development of the nation it comes to constitute a similar center of emotional ref- erence. The individuals who compose a na- tion suffer real pain when it is in any way in- jured, when an outsider even speaks disparag- ingly of it, and are correspondingly elated when it thrives, when it grows in any way. A true Britisher feels a thrill of pride when he hears that the sun never sets upon British soil, that the sun is followed in its course by the roll of the morning drum of British garrisons. The American, however humble, is never left unmoved by the statistics of billions of imports and exports, particularly when the balance is in favor of America. Neither may be in any de- gree better off for the fact, neither thinks of the expense that may rest upon him for the attain- ment of these glories. He thrills as he does at his own success. As the ideal source or occa- sion of emotion, the nation is as real an entity as a person.
It is one form of this emotional reaction to- wards the nation, what we call the national honor, that is at the bottom of many of the in- ternational difficulties, as Perla1 has recently emphasized. The American is not concerned
1 Perla: "What is National Honor?" 1918.
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about a fisheries dispute or any trade dispute bocause the outcome may affect him. He feels an emotion merely because his nation may suf- fer in its prestige if the decision goes against him. The extension of national territory in a modern state is seldom of any value to the sepa- rate individuals who constitute that state. They never can take any part of it for their own with- out the same compensation to the owners that they would have had to pay if it remained under the original flag, but they feel a pride if it is expanded, just as they feel aggrieved if the territory is in any way diminished. It is the same pride that the excessively wealthy feel when they add to their property even if it is al- ready more than sufficient for any possible need. The additional acquisition may mean only new cares with no possible increase in comfort, but they nevertheless feel pride in the acquisition and would be chagrined were they beaten in the struggle for it.
It is probably this development of an entity which serves as a point of reference for the emotions that is the most characteristic and the most important phase of the development of the nation. When you band a hundred million men together who will be elated whenever a few square miles are added to the territory of that nation, or when it gains any prestige in the
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financial, intellectual, or moral world and will grow angry when it is slighted or suffers loss or even insult in any form, you have a force that must be reckoned with for good or for ill. The emotions have an enormous effect upon the actions of the state as a whole and of the indi- viduals that compose it. You can argue as did the pacifist before America entered the war that each individual would be just as well off if a German army were occupying New York and competent German civil servants adminis- tering our national and state affairs. But even if the loyal American accepts your statements of the effects as true he will reply ' ' a thousand times better to be inefficiently administered as we are or even to be destroyed altogether than to have the best German or any foreign official prescribing in detail the private or political af- fairs of the smallest portion of our territory." It is the fact that the nation is a center about which develop such emotions as these which constitutes it a real force, perhaps the strong- est force in the modern world.
What really counts in naturalization is hav- ing the individual accept the new nation as the center for him of these emotions. When he can share them he is in truth a member of the new nation. It is the development of a common ideal in a mass of individuals that constitutes
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the appearance of a new nation. All of the other effects of nationality may be regarded either as springing from this or contributing to it. The acceptance of the general ideal carries with it willingness to strive for the minor ideals that are accepted by other mem- bers of the nation — the respect for freedom, for the standard of morality and cleanliness that is held by the other individuals in the nation. On the active side it implies willingness to make sacrifices that the nation may be maintained in all of its phases and in all of its mental and physical characteristics.
The existence of this ideal in so strong a form has also disadvantages when nations come into conflict. One can no more see one 's nation give up to another what seems to be an advantage than give it up for one's self. Many modern wars and most dangers of war have arisen over questions that affected the pride or the honor of nations rather than their interests. It is not so much the loss of territory for the value of the territory as it is the loss of national prestige involved in the abandonment of terri- tory that galls and arouses the anger of na- tions. It was the insult to the flag in the blow- ing up of the Maine rather than sympathy for the suffering Cubans that started the Spanish- American war. It was the demand for an abro-
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gation of sovereignty on the part of Serbia that the German and Austrian used to start the world war. It was quite as much the fact that the Boers refused to accept the demands of Great Britain and the consequent apparent con- tempt for her that was as important as any de- sire for territory or sympathy for the owners of Transvaal mines in really causing the Boer war. The instances may be multiplied until it seems that material damage, no matter how great, would seldom start a war were it not for the purely emotional reactions that are produced by injury to national pride and na- tional honor. Rationally regarded, a war al- ways costs more than it is worth. Once started on a course of aggression, the same pride will never permit either nation in the controversy to draw back. Many wars, no doubt, arise from unsuccessful bluffing. When a threat has once been made it is almost invariably carried through for fear of loss of national respect if it be withdrawn. Millions in men and billions in money will be lost before this national pride will be permitted to suffer.
It may be objected that, after all, the national entity has no existence outside of the minds that create and accept it, that no physical pain or material harm would come to any one if this ideal should be permitted to disappear. This
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must be granted. . At the same time, since it does exist and men are willing to make sacri- fices to maintain it, it is a real force. The same objection might be made to the existence of the individual personality. That, too, most modern psychologists regard as largely a con- cept, an ideal that has no definite relation to physical existence. A man's notion of himself is in large part merely the man's idea of what others think of him. He might be just as well off without many of the ideal characteristics or possessions that he ascribes to himself. James asserted that many Bostonians would be much happier if they gave up believing that they were musical experts and stayed away from the operas that they pretend to enjoy, if, i. e., they cut off from their idea of themselves the pre- tence that they were musical. Most of one 's emo- tions are connected with ideal elements that have nothing to do with real suffering or real, i. e., bodily, pain. The self of which we are proud is as much a mental construction as is the nation, yet most of our endeavors are devoted to furthering this notion of ourselves, to in- creasing a reputation for wealth, for charity, for accomplishment in some line. When some slight is cast upon a capability which we believe that we have, but really do not have, we are as much disturbed emotionally as if we were
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robbed of a real possession. Personal honor and prestige are all of a piece with national honor. In many respects the nation is as real as is the self. Both are in large measure ideal constructions, but when constructed, much of thought and action and practically all of emo- tion both in the individual and in society are controlled by or derived from them.
Altogether, then, it is clear that the social mind is merely a metaphor and has no real existence. Nevertheless the phenomena that it is used to designate are real. The nation is in a sense a mental aggregate, and ability to develop and be controlled by common ideals and to carry out acts in common is the prime criterion of the existence of a nation. In many ways the prod- ucts of the individuals who compose the nation may be regarded as the products of the nation. The nation certainly provides a medium in which the ideal of the individual may develop to the fullest extent, the nation spurs him to accomplishments that he would not otherwise be capable of, and restrains divergent tenden- cies that he would be liable to in another envir- onment. The thought is, however, always the thought of an individual, the acts are the acts of individuals, the emotions are reverberations in the bodies of individuals. Even the nation that is regarded as providing the ideals is a
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mass of individuals, and the ideals have no existence except as they are expressed by indi- viduals, or as they are pictured by individuals as present in the mind's eye of other individ- uals. Even the social instincts that give force to the ideals, and make possible social disci- pline, and the common thought and action in the nation are embodied in the nervous systems of individuals. They are individual possessions and exist only in the individuals. What makes the group behave as a nation is the qualities of the individuals that compose it, not a single superindividual entity.
True, nationality is an affair of the spirit, not of the body; it is an ideal rather than a material inheritance of certain races of men; it is a spirit incarnated in individuals. Again, it grows with experience, gains force with suc- cess, is dispirited or weakened by failure, even though it may be strong in adversity, but the experiences are the experiences of individuals, known and appreciated by individuals, and ef- fective only in so far as these individuals make them appeal to others.
While, then, the nation is not a single indi- vidual or a mind in the literal sense of the word, there is one sense in which the nation does assume many of the aspects of a person. This is as an ideal center of reference for emotions.
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The nation, as a concept, is a reality. About it the emotions of the members cluster. Increas- ing or improving it in any way gives them emotions of joy, impairing its existence or ef- ficiency in any way gives sorrow or anger very much as does the waxing or waning of the indi- vidual's own ideal self. In fact, as ideals for emotional reference, the self and the nation are very much on a par. Both are largely social products, are developed through experience in harmony with social standards, and while neither can be said to have material existence, they are both more effective in controlling the action of the individuals than any material forces. In this and in this alone does the nation resemble a mind. It is or has a self in much the same sense that the man is or has a self.
CHAPTEE VIII
THE NATION AS IDEAL
WE have come to the conclusion whenever we have examined any theory of the nation that it is a number of individuals held together first by the common social instincts of mankind ; gre- gariousness, sympathy, and fear of the group on the one hand, and by the acceptance of a common group of ideals on the other. Of these the instincts would explain why there is a grouping at all, but they would not explain why a man accepted one group rather than another. It is the existence of the common group of ideals that determines the differences between groups. That a crowd should gather and follow a leader to the end he suggests may be due to the instinct of gregariousness for the gather- ing; to fear, by the individual of the mass as a whole for the acceptance of the leader's sugges- tions, and for the tendencies to follow the crowd. But such a temporary gathering leaves no after grouping, no tendency to gather again, no sense of belonging to a common body. There may be a beginning in a desire to recall the com-
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THE NATION AS IDEAL 225
mon experiences, but one single common action would give relatively little even of that. There is no persisting unity.
What is characteristic of the nation is the existence of common ideals in all of its mem- bers. The group must have been united for some time if the ideals are to have a chance to develop or even to be accepted by the great mass. Ideals develop gradually. For a nation they require either a long period of life in work- ing together, or a short period of intense endeavor and strong emotion, if they are to reach any intensity sufficient to produce marked effect. The possession of ideals and willing- ness to act to maintain them are what constitute the common consciousness or spirit of the na- tion that we find referred to so frequently by the different writers and which is so little or so loosely defined.
In the last chapter we saw that the sense in which a nation could be assigned a corporate existence, or something incorporeal that corre- sponded in some degree to a mind, or to a self, was the existence in the different individuals of a common ideal. The most striking effect of an ideal is that it serves to give to an individual an end or aim that he could not acquire by virtue of his own knowledge, by his own devices. In this sense most of the directing
forces in society are the results of ideals. I have called their effect social pressure in other volumes. They constitute the ideal of attain- ment for the members of the group in every possible respect. In the ordinary study of a school boy, we find that he tries to excel because he respects the ideals set by his teachers and by his family for standing well in the subjects of instruction. In a school in which the ideal develops of slighting work and obtaining honors in athletics or in social activities only, all at- tempts to keep students up to the mark in studies will fail. In a wider sphere the youth chooses his calling because of the esteem in which the different callings are held in the com- munity in which he lives, or in his immediate family. Much of the incentive to work comes, from the desire to reach distinction in the chosen profession, and the subjects in which he shall work are selected because they are pre- scribed for the profession or are assumed to be necessary to the members of that profession. The ideals of attainment in every field of social life show the same laws and tendencies. We have pointed out that what shall constitute wealth depends upon the ideals of the commu- nity. It may be the ability to live on nothing of the anchorite, it may be the mere possession of a billion dollars, reputed to be the ideal of
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one ultra-wealthy American, it may be the ac- quisition of the largest number of rare books or rare stamps, or paintings, or it may be the shell money of the South Sea Islander. It is wealth, primarily because it has been fixed upon as desirable by the men who constitute the par- ticular society, and secondarily because it has value in exchange, because others are willing to give other desirable and necessary things for it. Both depend upon the existence of common ideals.
In the ethical and legal relations very much the same rule holds. What shall be proper for a society is fundamentally a matter of the ex- istence of ideals, in spite of the apparent fixity of most of these prescriptions. Many of the things fixed seem important for survival or for happiness, but many others are absolutely in- different to both and may even be uncomfort- able if not positively harmful or painful. It is quite as improper and meets quite as much social disapproval for a woman to smoke a cigarette as to lie ; in fact, unless the lie is par- ticularly flagrant or on a matter of great im- portance, most women in an American small town or outside of the wealthiest or more debauched classes would much rather lie than smoke, although the difference from any ra- tional consideration between the smoking of
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man and woman cannot be discovered. Simi- larly, many a man of the educated class would much prefer to be detected in a minor dis- honesty than in saying "ain't," which has no essential value other than as a sign of belonging to a social class. Many of the compulsions that are grouped as moral in opposition to mere social conventions are enforced in the same way. In fact, the difference between a social convention and morals is a finely graded one. Many of my readers would agree that smoking a cigarette is a matter of morals rather than of manners. The prescriptions are effective and the punishment of social disapprobation is* real. One may even say social disapproval is the most severe punishment and probably con- stitutes the really effective element in all pun- ishment. Any society is held together and most of the individual acts are in some degree deter- mined by the force of these ideals.
The ideals that exert an influence within a nation are in part common to society every- where, and in part are peculiar. The common effects represented in the nation are those that enforce the ordinary standards of decency and morality (decency and morality being words that indicate the accepted standards of mankind as a whole). Some of these are common to the same class in all nations although they may not
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be binding upon the nation as a whole. Such, for example, would be dressing for dinner, the avoidance of inelegancies in language, certain standards of personal hygiene. Others, such as the ten commandments or the modern sub- stitutes for them, would be fairly generally ac- cepted and they are regarded as applicable to all classes. The punishments are the same forms of disapproval.
One might enumerate the peculiarities of the ideals of different nations. Some of these are important, as, e. g., the attitude towards liberty. It has been pointed out in an earlier chapter that there are minor variations even between the most similar modern democratic nations. Liberty is essentially freedom from govern- mental interference with the personal conduct to the Briton ; to the American, it is more nearly freedom to express himself on political ques- tions and a willingness to submit to almost any detailed control, provided he may impose it on himself through the polls ; to the Frenchman freedom has more of an element of equality with others in a personal way and less of the political equality. One could undoubtedly find other shades of difference in each modern na- tion, even where all alike were enjoying politi- cal freedom, and were equally impressed with the ideal of freedom.
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The definite political ideals also vary in some degree. This can be most readily shown by the difference in the organic law, or at least in the fundamental phases of that law which corre- sponds to the constitution. On the whole, it is probably safe to say that in part the different systems of law and government accomplish the same ends by different means ; in part they ac- complish different ends by the same means. Here again some of the ends are set by the fundamental human instincts common to all men, others depend upon ideals that have grad- ually spread from the countries or peoples who first developed them to others because they have an instinctive appeal even if they are not them- selves instinctive in character. The different methods used in the attainment of the same ends, as differences in the procedure of the courts, are to be explained historically in large measure. Most go back to the acceptance of the Roman or the English Law. The changes are to be regarded as due to the attempt to adjust the accepted system to changing condi- tions in modern developments in industry and the accessories of life. They express what we call the genius of the people, which in its turn is largely dependent upon the ideals that have developed because of their peculiar character- istics and the environment in which they lived
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and of the experiences to which they have been subjected.
To attempt to describe these ideals for the different nations would require a treatise on comparative constitutional law as the out- growth of the history and native endowment of the peoples, a subject that would take volumes. Granted the existence of these varying ideals, it is more within our province to consider their effects. These we can divide into two groups ; one which corresponds to, if it is not in part identical with, the will of the individual, the other which is more closely analogous to what we call the self of the individual, the ideal of the state as a corporate entity, which embodies the hopes of the people, and is the source and object of their common emotions. The two in a measure coincide, for unless one had some notion of the nation as a corporate entity, as something which was to be respected and even loved, the compelling and controlling effect would be inappreciable.
In so far as the ideals determine the will of the members of the nation, they act because of the instinctive respect felt for the desires and accepted aims of the larger group. The state is the personification of public opinion with reference to the affairs of the nation. What these aims are cannot always be stated, but
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there is always an appeal to them to decide all questions of state, and one can nearly always decide when they are infringed upon. Those ideals of the nation are best typified by the British constitution, which is definite enough to serve as a guide for government in all of its essential general lines although it has never been formulated in words. The opposing mem- bers at least always know when it has been violated even if there is no agreement as to what it is. It controls the action of statesmen in no small degree, it is the incentive to many of the actions of the ordinary voter, it is the conscience and might be regarded as the will of the British nation in the same sense that the ideals and accepted aims of the individual constitute his will. It is the director and still more the gauge of all actions.
These ideals may change with time and under the influence of special stress. We have seen evidence of these changes over long periods in the history of the development of nationalities. "We can see the same sort of change working over short periods under the influence of special strains in the change or temporary abrogation of the British constitution when the power of the House of Lords to prevent legislation was given up recently, or in the numerous changes that were made by common consent during the
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war. In the American constitution, the same changes are wrought more slowly by the adop- tion of amendments and, a still better instance, by the immediate effect of the social ideals or the social conscience, express themselves directly in the changes in judicial decisions. The consti- tution, like every written document, is suscep- tible of many interpretations, and the change in interpretation has amounted in many cases to a rewriting of the instrument. It is a ques- tion whether the writers of the constitution would have recognized it when it had been in- terpreted by Marshall, and certainly Marshall would not recognize it as it stands in the present interpretations made necessary to conform to the changed social conditions and the more humane attitude that man takes towards the less fortunate members of society. Still more striking are the effects of decisions made dur- ing the war when the lower courts and, on some points, the highest have held to be constitutional acts that are, to the lay mind, against the spirit of all earlier interpretations made on similar questions. With the greater development of the corporate consciousness then comes the ac- ceptance of the common ideals and aims as law for all of the separate members — the courts recognize as constitutional many acts of the central government that would have been denied
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a quarter of a century ago. Some of these changes are made consciously, as when the court decides that it may take cognizance of social changes and the advances made in scientific knowledge; others are the imperceptible effect of the experiences that come to the judge as a man and a citizen, which change him with the rest of the nation. He is bound to think and act in the light of his knowledge, and to accept the ideals that have developed in the com- munity.
In this way the ideals of a nation enforce action in political and social matters. They compel each individual to act up to or at least towards the ideal of conduct in the selection of candidates for office, in enforcing upon the leg- islators the measures that shall represent the standards of the community and make possible the realization of them. In emergencies they impel citizens to go forth to fight that the nation and its ideals may be maintained. They compel the officers of the state to attain a certain stand- ard in the performance of their duties and, as we have seen in the case* of the courts, may determine the standards and in part at least take the place of specific laws in determining what their duties shall be and that they shall be performed.
Connected with this, the ideal of nationality
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becomes associated with many incidental stand- ards which are not at all essential to the main- tenance of the state and have only the vaguest relation to the political ideals. We have seen the effect of these on the naturalization of the immigrant in America. There are standards of dress, of wages, of food and hygiene, even of entertainment, which come to be accepted here as American, although there is nothing that would prevent them from being regarded as a symbol of occidental civilization in general. These vary in many respects from nation to nation and become associated like a flag or national anthem with the nation itself. They may be regarded as an expression of the na- tional solidarity, even if the nation would not be significantly changed without them.
As closely connected with this directing effect of the national ideals which may be regarded as their dynamic phase, we must also reckon with the existence of a static aspect, the exis- tence of the nation as an imagined corporeal or personified existence. It is this aspect that has been likened in the last chapter to the indi- vidual self as ideal. It is a notion or concept of the nation as something existing as a unified thing which is apart from the individuals but nevertheless in which they may be regarded as participating and whose glories they may share.
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This entity is what gives especial solidarity to the nation. To the member of the nation it has a real existence and the development of its pres- tige is a real end towards the accomplishment of which he is willing to exert effort. Its ex- istence depends in part upon the history of the nation and the accomplishments of the glorious past. A nation like Great Britain with a con- tinuous history of successful endeavor has a fuller sense of real existence than a newly de- veloped group like the Ukraine, although it must be granted that, when a nation develops quickly through great peril and much conflict, the ideal of a national entity acquires great strength in a comparatively short time. An element in the development of the spiritual unity and of national pride is undoubtedly the sense of past successes.
The existence of a common literature and hence of a common language is also of great importance. We have seen that this was all that held the Italian nationality together for half a dozen centuries, and it undoubtedly was largely responsible for the community of feel- ing among the German states before the de- velopment of the German Empire and in the reconstruction of that empire. But this is not altogether essential as is seen from the fact that Switzerland was one of the first modern nations
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to develop a sense of nationality and that it is among the states that have a very strong na- tionality, although it has four languages in ac- cepted use in different parts of the nation. On the other hand the United States and Great Britain have a common language and largely a common literature, although they are definitely different nationalities. A people's literature gives a sense of community, partly because it praises the nation and the deeds of its heroes, partly because it is itself a source of pride and furnishes a center about which the emotionally toned associates may cluster.
Zimmern1 insists that a nation demands for existence a home land with which the ideals may be associated. It is not necessary that the people live in this home land in any great num- bers, it is not even necessary that people who inhabit the physical territory shall be free, but he asserts that each nation must have a country of its own if it is to be a real nation. There is no discussion of the point, although it is as- serted each time that he defines nationality. He illustrates by the Irishman in New York who has never seen the old country but never- theless has an aspiration for nationality be- cause he can picture to himself the actual physical contours of the beloved old home. If
1 Zimmern: "Nationality and the State," pp. 52 and 96.
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we examine the statement by the methods of similarities and differences, it is hard to find opportunity of reaching a conclusion. Every nation has a home land with one exception, the Jew, and possibly the Gypsy. One may be said to be so thoroughly a part of the nation in which he lives that there is little chance for the notion of a separate nationality to develop ; the other probably has no sense of nationality, although there may be a consciousness of race. The Jews would seem to an outsider to have a sense of nationality that has persisted marvelously, considering the fact that they have not only no independent home country but also have been scattered over the earth for centuries. Zim- mern might argue that the bond was race or religion rather than nationality. If this is granted one must add that race and religion are hard to separate from nationality where the three go together and in any case there is much in common between them in their psychological laws and characteristics.
Whether Irishmen would retain so full a con- sciousness of nationality after two thousand years away from a home country even if that country continued to have its present degree of physical distinctness is a question. Certainly the Irishman in America shows more of a ten- dency to be lost in the general population than
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does the Jew, and if amalgamation continues at the present rate, an Irishman with a distinct consciousness of nationality will soon be very much more rare than a Jew. The Irishman, too, is much more likely to remain conscious of the land of his origin if he retain his religion than if he change. For him, too, it might be argued that nation and religion are in part, at least, one.
"While we may doubt whether a native land is absolutely necessary for the existence of a con- sciousness of nationality, there is no doubt that the possession of a common land is an impor- tant element in the notion of nationality, that the concept has as part of its content the picture of the home country, and that part of the long- ing of the exile is for the ancient seat. It matters little whether the land be beautiful as Switzerland or as unpleasant as the deserts of Arabia, the native acquires a fondness for it that aids his pride while at home and makes him long for it when at a distance. This pride may be aroused by the natural beauties, as in Switzerland, or by the architecture and other works of man as in France or Italy. Whatever it is, it gives a body to his ideal and a point of attachment for the other more spiritual or mental elements. Whether the strength of the national feeling depends upon the size of the
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country may be doubted, but certainly an American and probably a Russian is influenced by a knowledge of the vast extent of his land.
What is most important in the ideal is the sense of the mental achievements, the civiliza- tion, the education and technical skill, together with the physical power that goes with it all. These combine in different proportions with a notion of political freedom. All fuse in the general notion or symbol, but the proportions differ in different individuals and at different times in the same individual. The ideal reveals itself in consciousness in the emotional thrills that come whan one thinks of the achievements, the feeling of bitter resentment when the nation is maligned, and the sorrow with which one hears of any harm or deterioration that may affect the nation or any part of it. The true nationalist identifies himself with his nation and rejoices or mourns with it as he would at simi- lar changes in his own physical or social status.
This ideal as a social entity is in part essen- tial to and identical with the ideals that enforce the dictates of society. If one did not have the pride in the national entity, one would not feel impelled to strive to meet the approval of the nation in many political and related ways. One would not accept the standards of the nation and rise to them. The emotional reaction de-
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pends directly upon the ideals; the success of the nation or its failure arouses the emotion of the individual, just as does his own success or failure. The same influences that give rise to the emotion also serve to impel to action. The voluntary action of the individual is determined by very many of the same forces as these which control the action of the nation. What appears as the symbol of the nation and is reverenced as a real thing is also in part identical with the factor or force which drives the members of the nation to obey the mandates of common opinion. It is also a very large element in the individual will.
It must be said that the nation is only one of the many partial systems of ideals and ideal- ized organizations into which each individual enters. Each group that forms within the na- tion has approximately the same general char- acteristics as the nation as a whole. The church or churches, political parties, in lesser degree, the occupations and professions, and even the orders of society come to constitute similar entities with a distinct group of ideals that are enforced upon their members and an ideal rep- resentation that constitutes the end of en- deavor. A good party man is only less con- cerned that his party shall win than that his nation shall not be defeated. Some of the
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members of the socialist party are less con- cerned about their nation than about the party or the principles for which the party stands. In fact, for one branch the nation ceases to be of any value and should be dissolved to enter into an international organization of those that produce, to destroy the power of the capitalists. Socialism is distinctly anti-national, although in the late war the international allegiance was not strong enough to conquer the national and prevent war. In many cases a man's union or his class may assume a similar ideal existense as a definite unit. Still smaller units about which one 's emotions cluster and which take on the character of real entities are found in one 's factory or business where the employees are really interested, or in a school, or, in fact, in any organization with which one comes into close contact. Some, as the relation between the classes, are more marked by hatred of the other than by pride or liking of one's own. This holds definitely of the attitude of the lower to- wards the higher, although in the upper, par- ticularly in the older countries where the caste system is more in evidence, there is pride in the group as such that holds its members to certain conventional acts, that enforces definite standards of action in essentials as well as in
THE NATION AS IDEAL 243
incidentals. To be worthy of the name ' ' gentle- man" is a conscious ideal.
Some of these different group conscious- nesses overlap, some as we have seen are antag- onistic. The religiously inclined nationalist regards any disparagement of the nation as irreligious, as opposed to the laws of God as well as of man, while he may also regard as- sumption of the national attitude towards religion as a patriotic duty. This holds par- ticularly where there is a state religion, as in England, or where the church is closely con- nected with a national protest as in Ireland. In Italy and in France, to a slighter degree, we find nationalism in some classes connected with opposition to the church, so that religious be- lief becomes in some degree unpatriotic. Others are largely indifferent to the national ideals, and may be strong or weak with no reference to its strength. We find that any individual in the nation is always a member of numerous groups, is always possessed of a number of group consciousnesses. Some of these will exert a control at one time, others at another. Most of them tend to become organized so that there shall be little or no conflict be- tween them. When a man is in one environ- ment he will be dominated by one consciousness, in another he will be under the influence of
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another. Many of these may fuse into a single consciousness, or into a single one with many phases. In every case one may have a number of different loyalties more or less equally well developed. Man's social consciousness is not single but is a complex of many with control by a number of different groups of ideals, and pride in a number of different organizations. One may well ask whether the existence of these minor allegiances will affect the nature of the national allegiance. On the whole the answer is no. They tend to strengthen it. Be- longing to a nation is not a matter that can be daily contemplated and regularly emphasized. It is possible on the other hand to become im- mediately aware of the smaller group in the school and of such larger groups as the politi- cal parties. These with their frequent meet- ings serve as centers of real interests and so increase the warmth of the sense of community. All of these lesser groups with their allegiances naturally keep alive the loyalty to the larger whole. The meetings of the party all involve references to the solidarity and welfare of the nation even if it is only to accuse the other party of threatening that welfare or solidarity. The school, the church, the lodge, and all other local meetings recognize the existence of the larger, while they give specific emphasis to
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loyalty to the lesser whole ; all aid rather than hinder the development of a national loyalty, even when there is nothing of patriotism in their specific teachings.
We may, as we look back over the various considerations so far mentioned, see that na- tionality is dependent in varying degree upon race, upon a common language, a common his- tory with the inspiration of the great deeds of common ancestors, and upon a home country. Each of these is important, but its importance lies primarily in its effect upon the conscious- ness of the individuals who make the nation, rather than in its immediate effect. Belonging to a Common race is of value not because it gives an instinctive pleasant reaction, or be- cause, let us say, that the odor of another race gives an instinctively unpleasant reaction, but because it is a source of pride to the members of the nation to believe that they are all de- scendants of the same progenitors. It may not correspond to the facts; a belief in belonging to the race in question is all that is necessary. This is well illustrated by the story, perhaps apocryphal, of the negro soldier who spoke of the effect upon the Germans of "us Angry- saxums." Each of the nations of Europe, no matter how mongrel, glories in its assumed race, even if a very small proportion of the
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population really belongs to that race. The larger stock to which the nation is assigned varies according to the prestige of the race in question. The Englishman a quarter of a cen- tury ago gloried in being Teuton, but now makes little mention of that mixture in the population. The race as we use it is largely an artifact developed to give an explanation from heredi- ty of the national consciousness. A common language is of importance as a medium for the communication of ideas and so to provide for the spread of ideals. A common history is of value in the enthusiasm it may excite for an- cient deeds and attainments. The "native land" has the same function. It provides a physical center about which fond associations may cluster. Each of these factors is impor- tant in so far as the nation believes in them. The nation is what it believes itself to be. The nation is founded in ideals, and these are effec- tive in so far as they inspire loyalty. Loyalty in its turn is pride in what the members of the nation believe that nation to be and a willing- ness to strive for the ends which have been ac- cepted by the group as a whole.
If, in conclusion, we attempt to define the consciousness of nationality we may assert that it is an awareness of belonging to a group, with pride in the ideal notion of that group as a
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separate entity, a willingness to be controlled by the ideals of that group and to serve its ends. The nation exists only in the minds of the separate members, but when it does exist it unites them for action in a way that makes the nation a force without an equal in the ac- complishment of common tasks. The members of the group may change but the ideals persist in the members who continue and in those who replace those who fall out. The nation is im- mortal if its ideals are suited to survive, in spite of the fact that the men who created the ideals and those in whom they have been prop- agated have died and are constantly dying. The nation is an entity that changes and grows and still persists. It is a force in the world in spite of the fact that it is always an ideal in the minds of changing groups of men, and an ideal which controls the acts of an ever shifting multitude. Considerations like this tempt one to adopt the notion of the Hegelians that the nation is a super-personality of divine origin and guided by superhuman knowledge. There is no objection to this if one is content to take it as metaphor merely, and if one is permitted to question whether the force that shapes the destiny of all nations but one's own is satanic or divine. It must also be remembered that
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the nation always exists merely in the individ- uals who compose it, even when they regard it as an independent entity, and furthermore, that it exists for the individuals, not the individuals for it.
NATIONALITY AND THE STATE
WE have been discussing the nation as if it were an entirely informal organization of a group of people whose action was always de- termined by the instincts and ideals of the dif- ferent groups. We have entirely neglected to consider the organization of the state, or its relation to the spirit of nationality. The details of the organization fall well without our prov- ince, but it will not be out of our field to con- sider a few of the general bearings of one upon the other. One might assume with the philo- sophical anarchists that a government was un- necessary, that the human instincts were in themselves all good and that, were all restraints removed, man would act for the best and all individuals would be happy. An assumption of this type presupposes that instincts are per- fectly adapted to the environment and that they alone would suffice to meet situations in the best possible way. This assumption is true neither for the higher animals nor for the sim-
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pier instincts in man. Instincts as developed care only for the more general situations and for those only in the crudest, most general way. They suffice to keep the individual alive during the period of learning and to determine the more general form of response to the new situ- ations. All else must be learned and then es- tablished as habits. Even the pecking of a chick, fundamental as that process seems, is partly learned and only partly instinctive. At first the chick pecks awkwardly and at any small object; it is only with practice that it learns to discriminate edible from inedible sub- stances and to make accurate movements.
In the more complicated responses of social intercourse the instincts are still less adequate to serve as a complete guide. This is seen very clearly in the historical cases in which govern- ment has disappeared and only instincts were left to trust to for the control of the group or society. Even the Russian mob which, if one may believe Lincoln Steffens, started the revo- lution with a passive doctrine of non-resistance that promised ideal relations based on brotherly love alone, quickly gave way to bloodthirsty acts and exhibited the lowest instincts in the most unrestrained way. Whether this is to be attributed to falling under the sway of leaders in whom hate of the wealthy dominated, and
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who came to feel the necessity for executing all possible successors that their own rule might be continued and their lives saved, or whether it is the natural outcome of control by instincts when all rule of ideal and convention is relaxed, is not altogether clear. Certain it is that in the two conspicuous instances in modern times in which an attempt has been made to return to a natural existence with guidance by instincts alone, the Russian Revolution and the French Revolution, not to mention the lesser experi- ment of the French Commune in 1872, the re- sults have been a dominance of the worst rather than the best in man. The excuse that in all of these cases the condition has developed through reaction against tyranny, when the hates of the old order would naturally encour- age excesses, does not seem entirely adequate. Even in the communities which have been drawn together by desire of gain, the unor- ganized mining and oil camps of the American frontier or of Australia and Alaska, freedom from restraint nearly always gives free sway to the worst instincts.
If one attempt to delimit the role of instinct and ideal or law in the control of man's action in society, it would seem that the two are re- lated very much as are instinct and habit in the control of the acts of the individual man
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or animal. The fundamentals are prescribed by instincts, the refinements must be added by learning. Instincts may be pictured as a rough hewing of the acts to make sure that they will be performed somehow, but as leaving much room for improvement by knowledge. In the social arrangements, man is provided with a set of vigorous reactions which are to be ap- plied when he is the subject of oppression, when a fight is necessary; with another set of re- sponses that are called into action when faced by overpowering force ; with another, still, that is to be applied when one of his own species or of any species which may even by personifica- tion be brought into the same class with him- self is suffering; but which of these responses shall be evoked in any particular connection is not absolutely determined. One may classify the situations or stimuli in terms of experience, and in the contemplative human type of action, response waits upon this classification. It therefore becomes the deciding factor in de- termining what reaction shall be made. The selection from among the possible responses to a given situation is determined by this classi- fication. One can see the operation of this selection best in the action of the human emo- tions. In a given situation one may frequently either become angry, be frightened, or amused
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according to the interpretation that one puts upon the various circumstances. A remark, for example, will be a pleasantry or an insult ac- cording to the tone in which it is uttered or the previous relations to the man who makes the remark. It depends upon a rather delicate estimate of personal strength and the strength of an opponent, whether one becomes angry or afraid, and whether in consequence one attacks or runs, when, let us say, one is forced to deal with a drunken bully, an infuriated horse, or bull.
Where the estimates must be made by a crowd in a moment of excitement or when much is at stake, all may turn upon some chance cir- cumstance. A mob will vary in its action from the extremes of sympathy and helpfulness to the most fiendish brutality with little change in the circumstances. Whether a prisoner is to be classed by a revolutionary mob as a pleas- ant, inoffensive old man or one of the hated oppressors will depend upon such a slight factor as a remark of one of the crowd who remembers a kind deed, or upon the remem- brance by another of some time when he has applied for work in desperation to another member of the employing class and been re- fused, perhaps by a man who resembles this one in dress or stature. The old emotion is re-
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aroused and the victim perishes through his denunciation or by his overt act. In the actual contact with problems, instinctive reactions are determined by such slight factors and the char- acter of the reaction is so vital that alone they are a very unsatisfactory guide. The psycho- logical justification of government, if one is needed, is to be found in the method that it affords of standardizing these responses and freeing them so far as is possible from control by chance and arbitrary elements.
In essentials, ideals have been seen to furnish rules of conduct based upon a determination of what is most satisfactory in the light, not of crude instinct, but of instinct guided and con- trolled by experience which has been summed up in what we call intelligence or reason. As opposed to instincts, this means action on ra- tional grounds. In common sense terms the opposition is between doing what one pleases and doing what is right. This opposition is not absolute, because where right is taken to mean harmony with the most enlightened ex- perience, right is what one would choose did one take all of the circumstances and all of the effects of action into consideration, rather than the few circumstances and few effects that in- fluence instinct. Informally these results of experience are embodied in conventions, stand-
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ard forms of response or acts that are tacitly accepted as norms of conduct by all of the mem- bers of society. Their growth has been shown to be through trial and error, the acceptance of acts which have proved useful and the rejec- tion and reprobation of acts that were found on trial to produce disagreeable consequences. Formal government is to be looked upon as the embodiment of these successful conventions and rules of conduct. At first one can make sure that the rules shall be enforced by giving them a divine origin. It was ordained by the gods that reparation should be made for life taken wilfully; later they prescribed that there should be no killing, etc., as in the command- ments given to Moses on stone tablets. All through the earlier stages the enforcement of the conventional rules even when they were given a divine origin was in the hands of the individual and was always subject to the whim of the stronger, and open to contest by the man upon whom it was inflicted. Gradually the con- ventional law, which has been accepted inform- ally, is expressed in definite statutes and some one is given or assumes the authority of seeing that it shall be enforced. We need not run through the various stages in the development of government. As all else in evolution it was at first crude and the means used were or seem
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to us to-day unnecessarily harsh, for the end to be accomplished. The chief or king would en- force the penalties of the law with the purpose of making sure that he maintained his authority rather than to prevent the suffering of others. It was only after much experience and much knowledge of human nature under many differ- ent conditions that it was possible to consider the rights or the comfort of the offender.
If we look at the fundamental question of the control and the source of authority for govern- ment in general that has been so important in all of the. theories of political science, we must find it in the agreement of its methods and ef- fects with the ideals of the people who are governed. Each of the theories of the origin of authority probably can be supported as an explanation or partial explanation through rea- son for the particular form that government took. The patriarch probably received his first authority from the fact that he was the oldest member of the group and stood to the others in the relation of father to son. It was natural that his authority should be accepted. His development into a king was again natural with the increase in the kin over whom he ruled and the additions to the tribe by conquest and as- similation. As the king became inefficient, natural leaders would tend to take his place
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with the development of aristocracies, or, if the selfish interests of the king overcame his ten- dency to care for the good of the whole, he would be overthrown. In all forms of govern- ment one finds that the accepted good of the governed and harmony with the ideals of the social mass determine the form of the govern- ment. If one form gives good results and the community is pleased, the government is con- tinued and arguments from religion, from the greatness and success of the ruler, from the glory gained for the nation by the acts of the leader and of the whole nation are used to justify the continuance of the power. When the form of government is unsuccessful, there will be grumbling, but it will nearly always be continued for a time because of the arguments that have been accepted to enforce the rule of the good government. They will be too strong to yield at once to the evidence of facts. After a particular ruler has been unsuccessful, or a particular administration has failed, the form of government will persist for a time in the hope that the personnel of the ruler or of the rulers may change for the better and the good old time return. Habit is always strong with the mass. All through the early ages, save for a period in Greece and Rome emphasis was put upon the maintenance of the particular form
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of government, upon the right of the king to rule, rather than upon the real source of power. When it became evident that the government must derive its authority from the consent of the governed as it did first in modern times in England, France, and America, attempts were again made to develop a theory that should give a rational warrant for government. This we see in Eousseau's famous theory of natural rights and the social contract in which it is asserted that man is born with a right to do as he pleases and that he early consented to part with some of his rights for the good of himself and his fellows. Each limited his rights on condition that others would limit theirs for the mutual benefit of all, a suggestion in which he had been partly anticipated by Locke. His- tory and what knowledge we have of primitive peoples afford no warrant for the belief that the process of developing a government had any of the self and other conscious bargaining that Eousseau suggests. Probably before man had a knowledge of the needs for government and any such concept as right, he was already part of some community or other, through the action of his social instincts, and group ideals had begun to develop. Eousseau's and similar theories are interesting in so far as they em- phasize the modern tendency to derive the
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authority of government from the community as such, rather than from a divine warrant or from mere tradition or from respect for elders. Viewed in the large, governments may be thought of as means of subordinating immedi- ate instincts to the control by knowledge and experience — to guide acts towards others by the results of earlier results of such acts and to properly classify them for instinctive reaction. The forms of government developed from the conditions of life, modified by trial and error. One might assume that all forms go back to the patriarchal, but if so they would be modified in various ways by the exigencies of different peoples living under divergent conditions. When a modification comes that gives satis- factory results, it persists ; when unpleasant or undesirable results appear, the government is either overthrown or modified to give greater satisfaction. One may think of the develop- ment of government as a process of trial and error. The various suggestions grow out of antecedent forms of control, the family, the more extended chieftainship, the priest, or what not. Success or failure is measured by the sur- vival of the group, in the final analysis, and before that by the satisfaction or happiness of the individuals in the state. One must not think of the origin of government as altogether ra-
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tional and voluntary on the part of the indi- viduals who are involved in the government, either as ruler or ruled. Occasionally, par- ticularly in modern times, a scheme of govern- ment has been worked out theoretically and applied in practice, sometimes successfully, at times unsuccessfully. Locke suggested a form of government for the colony of Carolina which seems to have been moderately successful. More often a suggestion as to a desirable method of government or change in government has been obtained from a neighboring state. Maitland 2 instances the transfer of the jury system from England to the continent in the eighteenth century. It was adopted at first in minute detail, although later was changed to suit the new conditions. Much less successful were the attempts to borrow other forms of government by the leaders of the French Revo- lution. They modeled their form of govern- ment upon England and the old Greeks. Although both had been successful in the land of their origin, the attempt to transfer resulted in a disastrous failure. It must be said that Napoleon's code, made equally out of hand, was on the whole successful. One can see similar instances of successful and unsuccessful bor- rowing of forms and methods of government
2 Maitland: "Collected Papers," vol. 3, pp. 298f.
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in the different states of America. After all, tht development of government has its closest analogue in the trial and error and natural se- lect'on of the biological evolution, rather than in tie conscious planning of a rational being. The suggestions for improvement may be given by tie other forms of government already de- veloped, or by the imagination of some man of vision. However the suggestions arise, they must always be tried in practice, and gradually modif ed to meet the demands of a nation, be- fore they can be assured.
The specific prescriptions and laws as well as the form of government that enforces them are constantly being tested by their agreement with the ideals of the community as well as by their effects in practice. If a law is promul- gated that seems to work injustice to a large proportion of the members of a community, they, at least, will work for its revocation and if it proves to have bad results it will either be repealed or ignored. In a democratic state where the laws are made by the votes of the people or by their representatives, the initiation of the law will be due to a belief on the part of some considerable portion of the community that it will improve the existing condition. This anticipation will be checked by its effects in practice, and thus the laws become an embodi-
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ment of the ideals of the nation. As opposed to the control by instinct, this means that each act will be tested not by the instinctive appeal of the moment with the uncertainty of iiter- pretation of the situation that results from that, but by instincts checked by ideals, and by ex- perience. Then, too, each individual who reads the law will pass upon it in part by instinct as well as by knowledge and reason, so that the final test is by man's original nature plus ex- perience instead of by his instinct alone.
After the action has been decided upon in the light of the prescription of the law, the act itself will have all of the characteristics of instincts and will arouse all of the emotions that attach to instinctive acts. If the law or convention prescribes charitable care, the emotion of pity and the joy of helpfulness will be aroused as completely as if the act were done without forethought, i. e., on mere impulse. If, on the contrary, punishment is prescribed, the act of punishment arouses the emotions con- nected with vengeance. True, the execution of the law may and probably should be.come im- personal and unemotional, but the attitude of the public that impels to the enforcement will be accompanied by emotion, and this in part gives force to the public opinion. One may think of the law as a process of restraining
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action until the situation has been properly classified and the plan of action determined in the light of the best knowledge of the com- munity. After the classification has been made, the action is carried out in accordance with the instinct in whose class it belongs, and the cor- responding emotion will be aroused in the natural way. This statement does not take into account the fact that the individual may be aided in executing the act by other members of the state upon whom the duty has been imposed, but considers only the individual's part in the act. One can see in the numerous added tests and safeguards of the correctness of action that this process of law throws around it, why action in accordance with law should be more suited to its ends than purely instinctive responses such as are made by the mob when it attempts to enforce its authority.
In general, the relation of the state to the nation is that the state embodies and provides a means for realizing the ideals of the nation. The rulers will be guided by those ideals in their acts even when they seem arbitrary, and in the modern state the laws will be an out- growth of the ideals and will be tested by the sentiment of the nation before passage and their effects will be tested by similar compari- son with ideals and with public opinion. So
far as the general rule goes all is smooth sail- ing. Of course, in practice the relation is not so simple. The interests of all members of the state or nation are not identical. Where they come into conflict, methods must be developed of harmonizing the conflicting interests, or some means of deciding which of the irrecon- cilable interests shall be permitted to have its way. These methods of making decisions on disputed points have also become convention- alized and reduced to laws. They are probably more important in the function of the modern state than are the means of enforcing generally accepted ideals where such exist. A large part of the modern development of states has been made possible by a willingness to abide by the opinions of a majority, to accept apparent or actual loss of personal advantage in the in- terests of harmony, and even to give over ideals which seem right in the face of a vote in favor of other ideals by the greater number of the community.
Even this process is tempered and modified by the existence of ideals. Most states have laws or principles behind laws which prevent a majority from depriving the minority of rights. One cannot invade the home of the in- dividual except under definitely stated condi- tions, one cannot prescribe religious beliefs or
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interfere with freedom of speech even if the religion of the few or the opinions expressed by them be distasteful to the many. The state cannot divide the property of the few among the many even if the many vote for the division. These exceptions are made because of a belief, in certain cases based on trial, that the welfare of the state and so of the individual in the long run and on the average will be furthered if the action of the majority be lim- ited in this respect. The man without property hopes to acquire it later and desires to be able to keep it when he gets it, the man with no new theory of government or religion knows that he may have one later and desires to be free to expound it, or he may see and have proved by test that a state or society advances more rapidly and is more contented if each man is left free to think and say or do what he pleases within limits that do not conflict with the free- dom of others. This again is a case of adjust- ing acts to the advantage of the future instead of the present alone and of considering the greatest good of the greatest number for all time rather than the immediate advantage or apparent immediate advantage even of the majority.
How far the ideals of the nation and the formal prescriptions of the state will coincide
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varies with circumstances. In nearly every age there is some lack of harmony from the fact that the ideals grow more rapidly than they can be embodied in laws and also because laws are continued after the ideals have changed. This is a condition that, with the modern mecha- nisms, tends to right itself, although in the period of lack of harmony the result may be very irritating. More important in many of the modern states is the problem that arises when more than one nationality and more than one set of national ideals chance to be repre- sented in the same state. Here again the atti- tude of the modern state is to treat the differ- ences in nationality much as one does differ- ences in religion. The essential ideals will be common to all. These may be enforced. The unessential must be permitted to stand freely and each nation be compelled to respect or at least refrain from interfering with the others. Where this course has been followed there has usually resulted an amalgamation of one by the other or the fusion of both into a common new group that offers a permanent solution of all the problems. Where attempts are made to force a people to give up its national language or any of its national peculiarities or ideals, the result is usually to arouse the emotions of hate with the result of intensifying national
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feeling and keeping it more distinct than it would otherwise be. This can be seen with Danes, Poles, and Alsatians in Germany, and with the minor sections in the various regions of Austria. A state is probably strongest when it has but one nationality, but unity cannot be forced upon it. National ideals must be ac- cepted willingly or not at all.
The relation of the state to the nation took a practical form in connection with the draw- ing of boundaries at the peace conference. There were many places where state lines and national lines did not agree and where it was difficult to make them agree unless one disre- garded all economic considerations and all problems of ease of administration. If one as- sume for the moment that we were to be given authority to adjust these problems and were also given omniscience for the facts, a solution in the light of our principles must follow several different rules. The first is that any division must be made as nearly as possible on the lines of nationality. Nationality is not a matter of inheritance primarily, but of ideals. It is an affair of the mind or spirit, not of length or breadth of head or even of physical relation- ship. The only way to decide whether an in- dividual belongs to one nation rather than an- other is to ask him. While his answer is not
necessarily infallible, since he may not appre- ciate what his ideals are in every case, it is more likely to be right than any other. It does not necessarily follow that in practice nation- vality is to be the only consideration in the creation of a new state. After all, nationality is not absolutely fixed. As we have had occa- sion to see in several connections nationality and the ideals of nationality are subject to change, and on occasion where any possible division will do violence to some principle of nationality one must accept the best solution possible and trust to adjustment of nationality with time.
Other circumstances that must be taken into account are the economic relations and the ease of government. A state should have easy communication with its markets, and the in- dustries of one part of its territory should, if possible, supplement those of another. Also where small colonies of one nationality are in- terspersed among other nationalities or within a single nation, it would be difficult, if not im- possible, to administer a government for each nationality. In such cases any solution will be unfair and have its disadvantages. All that can be suggested is to follow the national lines wherever that will give a unit of homogeneous people of suitable size. Each of these units
should be sufficiently provided with lines of communication, and with correlated industries to be economically independent. On the bor- derlands inhabited by mixed races, the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants should be considered first, but where these were too seri- ously in conflict with economic conditions, the best compromise possible must be made. After an adjustment has been reached it should be open to change in the light of later experience. It will always be tempered by the fact that members of the minority nationality can move to a region where their own people predominate, and also by the fact that under any fair gov- ernment the individuals after a time are likely to change their ideals to conform to those of the majority — will become naturalized.
These general principles were accepted in principle by the peace conference. Poland is to be given an outlet through Danzig, the claim of the Slavs to an outlet on the Adriatic is rec- ognized at the moment by all but the Italians, who have an adverse claim. The supposed ma- jority of inhabitants decided the boundary be- tween Roumania and Hungary and between Germany and Denmark, although any division would necessarily leave Roumanians in Hun- gary and Magyars in Roumania. After a de- cision has been made, each state, new and old,
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must exercise toleration if the lot of the mi- nority is to be bearable. In an enlightened state this should not be difficult. There are always differences of opinion, many times on matters that are as important and as much a source of irritation as nationality. Some we have already mentioned in this chapter; religion, economic theories and the resulting political beliefs, race prejudices, apart from differences of nation- ality, are all as keen and as difficult to over- come as national differences. Nevertheless they are subjects on which all modern states recognize the right of individual opinion and even of individual expression, and in most states working agreements have been reached which permit amicable relations between op- posing parties. Development of a habit of for- bearance on these matters will no doubt prepare the way for a similar toleration with reference to nationality.
On the whole, the national boundaries would follow linguistic lines as well. The common means of communication implies the develop- ment of common ideals, and a common history will give at once common language and common ideals. Exceptions will occur to any one. The most prominent at present is probably in Al- sace and Lorraine where French sentiments are found in people who speak the German Ian-
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guage. It was true under the French rule that the language was German and under the attempted suppression of the French language in all places, use of French actually increased. Even where the language did not become French, French ideals and the French nation- ality dominated. While the language spoken by a people is probably the safest objective in- dex of nationality, it is only an index and cannot be trusted against the expressed desires of the inhabitants. In considering the subsidiary fac- tors in rearranging state lines, however, lan- guage might well be taken account of as well as the economic factors. Other things equal, a state that, speaks but one language is much easier to govern than one of polyglot races. "Where nationality fails to follow linguistic lines, and the feeling of nationality is accen- tuated, nationality must be given right of way. It is more important than anything else.
It must be said that where for any reason language, economic interests, or ease of admin- istration tends to require the erection of a state or a division of sovereignty along other than national lines, there is always danger. What- ever solution is reached is certain to be more or less unsatisfactory; one is presented with a choice of evils. In a situation such as that in Ireland, where national aspirations are at
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variance with both the economic interests and the convenience of government and where in addition it seems that there is no particular desire for a solution, any decision is sure to be unfortunate. Here the south of Ireland cannot and is not willing to exist without Ulster, and Ulster cannot and will not be prosperous with- out connection with England. Furthermore any division that may be attempted is bound to leave territory with a bitterly resentful mi- nority under the dominion of both sides, a strong minority whose national alignments and business interests lie with the other group. Even a plebiscite would probably give no com- plete satisfaction, for all might be impoverished with the destruction or impairment of business relations. In any case as much would be deter- mined by choice of the districts within which the votes should be taken as by the results of the balloting itself. Where there is no spirit of compromise or toleration on either side as seems to be the case in Ireland, no arbitrary selection of a principle to use in solving the problem is of value. Nor can one trust to the influence of time to soften the opposition. The more one nationality asserts itself, the stronger is the opposition from the other. Should one side give up, which is unlikely, the other might
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become tolerant. No solution proposed holds any great promise of success.
It is evident that the nation derives its authority and entire raison d'etre from the na- tion. The nation is cause, the state effect. Government is the agency by which the nation as a mental entity expresses its ideals and com- pels its members to live in accordance with them. The ideals that develop in the nation find expression in the form of government first and then in the specific laws and in the acts of executives and the judiciary. We need not as- sume that the ideals become fully conscious be- fore they are formulated or embodied in gov- ernment; rather, the state develops by a tentative process. Some form of government appears by chance, if it is successful — if it works — it is continued; if not, a new form is tried. The results are constantly tested by the instincts and ideals. The government must pass the test of permitting the individual to satisfy his fundamental instinctive needs and must also harmonize with his developed social standards and ideals of right. These, too, grow with life in the state, and with the development of new ways of living. As the ideals of the nation grow they must find expression in new laws or the old laws must be interpreted and executed in a new spirit. That the change in
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social order frequently shows itself in a change in the interpretation of the laws rather than in the passage of new laws is one of the best evi- dences of the dominant influence of ideals. We can find evidence of this in the gradual elimi- nation of the king from all but a formal part in the government of England and in the de- velopment of such a legal fiction as the "benefit of clergy" which made endurable the severe penalties of the criminal law long after people in general had forgotten what the legal defini- tion of clergy or clerk really was.
The laws are formulated ideals. They are of value primarily because they anticipate situa- tions which the individual would not know how to classify in the light of instinct alone or of his own experience. When tested they give the individual an approved standard of conduct that represents the experience of the commu- nity, even of civilized society everywhere, rather than his own instincts. As an instru- ment of enforcing the laws, the state may be regarded as a means of providing physical backing to the force of ideals. Even here the authority of the executive rests both ultimately and immediately upon the ideals of the nation or of the smaller group and the instinctive fear of the group or respect for public opinion. An important element is respect for the law and
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for the officers of the law in and of themselves. There is something even in the most sophisti- cated adult citizen of the small boy's fear of the policeman which is one phase of respect for law as law and for the officers of the state, irrespective of their personal character. This is partly habit, partly perhaps derived from theoretical considerations that the law should have weight so long as it is law. Both are ultimately expressions of the instinctive dislike of disapproval of the mass. The officer becomes the embodiment of the law as the law is the formulation of the ideals of society. Where the law is out of harmony with the ideals it will be nullified or disregarded by mere popular consent as has happened with the blue laws of New England.
It may be again emphasized in summary that the nation develops first, the state later or pari passu with it. Last of all comes the theoretical or rational justification. Whether it be the as- sertion of the divine origin which was made to support the older autocratic forms or the social contract theory, or theory of the rights of man which were adduced to sanction the modern democratic state, they are arguments developed after the fact to explain or justify the estab- lished order rather than statements of the way in which the state or nation really arose. After
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a state has existed long enough for the habits of acting in accordance with its rules to be firmly established, it seems that no other con- dition is possible. Then many men are ready with theories and arguments to prove that it must have been. These arguments do not state the real reasons for the existence of the state; rather they are devised to prove what needs no proof and to give formal justification for the existence of a condition long accepted and de- veloped, no man knows how.
In short, the state in all of its phases and characteristics can be understood only in its relations to the nation. It grows out of the national ideals, derives its final authority from public opinion, and is merely an instrument by which the nation as an organized mental unity may express itself and control the acts of its members. It takes form slowly by a tentative process of trial, for ideals are not clearly con- scious in the minds of the individuals that con- stitute the nation, the only consciousness that it has, but are frequently merely vague striv- ings for a better condition. As each change in law or form of government is made, it is tested by its results and accepted, if satisfactory. While the state never is in complete harmony with the ideals of the nation, either because the state has not yet grown to the nation, or the
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state persists as the embodiment of older ideals, nevertheless the ideals of the nation set the standard towards which the state must strive, and where the two come into conflict the nation will always emerge supreme.
CHAPTER X
NATIONALITY AND SUPER-NATIONALITY AS EX- PRESSED IN A LEAGUE OF NATIONS
THE principles of social psychology upon which nationality depends are fundamentally two : the common instincts and the ideals which develop through these instincts acting in and upon the experience of peoples. The instincts are fixed and the same for all individuals in whatever society found; the ideals are an ex- pression of the experience of the individual group and of the conditions under which it has developed. The instincts constitute what we are accustomed to call the immutable laws of human nature, while the ideals may change as experience dictates. Fortunately the more important elements in the development of na- tionality are the ideals and so may be made over to suit the changing conditions and give room for growth in the general organization or in the detailed character of the different states. The instincts force some sort of liv- ing together, they make possible cooperation through sympathy, and they enforce ideals by
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the instinctive respect for the opinions of others and by the fear of the disapproval of the group, expressed either in the immediate presence of a crowd or by public opinion in tradition or in the press. The latter instincts give the ideals and conventions of a nation the impelling force of instincts at the same time that they permit adaptability to the changing conditions.
This distinction is of great importance when we approach the questions, "Is nationality the last word in political organization," and "Is it possible to go beyond and find a larger unity in a community of states'?" Were the national organization dependent upon instinct alone, the problem could not be asked. A nation once formed would be a closed unit, its members would be bound together by natural ties — all outside the group would be forever distasteful to all within and there would be no hope for a change of any sort. As nationality is largely dependent upon the development of ideals and a new ideal, when developed, has the force of instinct, it is always possible to make progress. New organizations may arise in the midst of old and old organizations may be extended to include outside elements. These changes in the old nations have always characterized the history of peoples, just as changes in allegiance
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are important phenomena in the modern shift- ing1 of populations.
When we face the pressing problem, whether the psychology of nationality involves any prin- ciples that would make impossible the develop- ment of the wider international state or league of nations, we naturally ask how many of the instincts and ideals effective in the nation are compatible with the development of a wider union. It may be said at once that all of the true instincts are quite as much suited to the international or super-national organization as to the national. One may confidently assert that the development of the national spirit has come about by a restriction of the natural range of the social instincts by training rather than by any unnatural extension of them. Sympathy and fear naturally are not respecters of per- sons and recognize no limits of race or lan- guage. With the setting off of smaller groups through associations they are perhaps un- equally distributed, more keenly aroused by the members of the narrower circles and vary in strength inversely in proportion to the distance from the center. It is only artificially that these instincts have been restricted in their applica- tion to members of one nation.
What has made the nations, as may be seen clearly in history, is the development of common
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ideals. These are based on instincts but the form that they shall take is due to the experi- ence of the nations and of the individuals that compose it. They change as conditions change. Just as they have been expanded from the tribe or similar small group, to the city, and from the city to the empire, so they may readily spread to include many or all of the civilized nations. Of the ideals that at present guide the nations many are common to all. There is no nation in which there is not at least lip worship for the principles of human liberty and democracy. All at least approve the same general principles of ethics and it would be hard to find a suffi- ciently unprejudiced observer to say where these principles are least respected in practice. One might object that the dislikes between nations are too strong ever to be overcome. If one grant the strength of the national preju- dices, it must also be remembered that they are conquered or forgotten daily with reference to individuals. The national differences are by no means so marked as many others that are per- mitted to exist within each nation. There are many antipathies between geographically dis- tinct groups, or between different social strata or even political parties and religions that are stronger than those between nations. Every nation has at times had differences in religion
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that have either threatened or have actually brought on physical conflicts. It is quite as easy to arouse a Protestant native to the fight- ing point by stating that a Catholic church is bringing in boxes of rifles as it would be by telling him that a Polish society had conducted the same campaign. Just now more excitement would be aroused if it were a German society that was suspected, but that may be regarded as a temporary condition. The readers of the Menace have much more bitterness towards the Pope and the local clergy than they have for Austria, and certainly more than they had for Germany five years ago. On the whole, re- ligious differences have been overcome. No in- telligent man in any civilized country would think seriously of stamping out a religious be- lief or preventing religious practices that were not abhorrent to his humanitarian or moral ideals.
The conflicts between political parties, even when they have ceased to stand for any impor- tant differences in principle, are stronger, often, than the dislikes of nations. We have seldom had a war in which the members of an opposite political party would subordinate its interests completely to the interests of the country as a whole. The New England Federal- ists in the War of 1812 would smash the coun-
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try rather than give over their political and business practices ; some of them would rather see the war lost than have the Democrats ob- tain the credit of winning it. The northern Democrats in the Civil War gave only grudging adherence to Lincoln, and it is not unfair to say that the debates in this war have had al- most as much reference to what party should have the credit for saving the country or civil- ization as to how and whether it should be saved. This is in part pure selfishness on the part of the leaders who see themselves out of a job if party differences should disappear, but in part it is shared by their followers who would regard the dissolution of the Republican or of the Democratic party as a real calamity, commensurate in importance with the disin- tegration of the nation. At any given point in the controversy they would secretly prefer to see the nation go, but consideration of the con- sequences, the fact that the party would go with the nation and their interests with the party, restrains them.
Even more prominent and decidedly more vital are the commercial and business disputes. But these are quite as strong between indi- viduals and classes of the same nation as be- tween nations. There is no more logic in a citizen of the United States becoming excited
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because an American company is debarred from transacting business in China or should have difficulty in collecting a debt in Africa than that a citizen of Chicago should be disturbed because another man in the same city has lost money by the repudiation of a debt by one of the southern states. It is to the interest of all that good laws should exist everywhere. These arrangements have little or nothing to do with the wider groupings of nations or super-na- tions. Wherever one sees wrong done one re- sents it and where that wrong is done to one of one's own political group the resentment is increased and may lead to revenge or punish- ment. The impulse is common to all humanity in varying degree, irrespective of the closeness of relation to aggressor or victim. The prac- tical dangers can be avoided either by making sure that no harm is done or by providing a way of righting the wrong that shall not depend upon the separate national organization.
The strongest antagonisms are those that arise between the supporters of different the- ories of government, not between political groups. A Socialist, a Bolshevist, or an I. W. W. might conceivably object when a wealthy corporation obtained a decree that should en- able it to collect a debt, even a just debt, from a member of the proletariat, but there is no
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reason why he should object more if the cor- poration have its home office in Tokio than in London or New York. So long as disputes are being settled every day within the nations that offer very much more cause for friction and dispute than many or most that would arise be- tween nations, there is no occasion for regard- ing the solution of the problems of practical organization of international judicial machinery as impossible. In these alone can we see any real danger to the development of a wider union of peoples.
The existence of national rivalries, even oft national hates, need offer no more difficulty in practice than do the individual and local rival- ries to the working of the present political in- stitutions. After all, just as sympathy is great- er, the rivalry between neighbors is keener than that between individuals on the opposite sides of the ocean or the opposite sides of the earth. The hates between men of different social posi- tions in the same town or nation are stronger and can be less easily obviated than the hatred between men of different civilizations. It is much more of a problem to find an equitable, or at least a universally acceptable means of dividing the proceeds of industry between capi- tal and labor than to devise a scheme by which Eussian and Australian, or Englishman and
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Hottentot may live together upon the earth without interfering with each other. The prob- lems that do arise between the different races are the same as those that arise within the races and are less acute in form because the contacts are less frequent. On the negative side, then, there is no more reason why there should not be an international organization than a national one. In each case the bond has grown far be- yond the range of personal acquaintance and in one case not so much farther than the other as to make a difference in kind. Granting that there will never be a disappearance of national rivalries, we should recognize also that these are no more inimical to the existence of inter- national community of spirit than are the more local rivalries, even the individual rivalries, to the narrower state or national consciousness. These local rivalries, at present, certainly aid as much as they hinder the development of the wider bond.
If the jealousies between nations are not sharper than those between individuals and groups within the nations, there is every hope that an international organization may be suc- cessful. No one thinks of restricting the belief of the citizens of a state in religious matters, nor in the field of political theory, two sys- tems that have in the past been as fruitful of
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conflict, even of wars, as have the national at- tachments. In an international state, if the machinery of an international state were to be developed, one would expect the national spirit of each nation to persist, one would even ex- pect the conflicts of these aspirations to con- tinue, but to have them settled in some rational way. Just as the rivalries of individuals in any state constitute an element of strength to the nation as a whole or the rivalries of cities and of larger subdivisions constitute a factor that makes for the progress of the nation, so the rivalries of the nations might very well be an element in inciting to progress in the inter- national community. In our American cities one of the incentives to improvements of all kinds is the desire to be better or not more backward than others that claim to be rivals. A similar rivalry between what are now sepa- rate nations need not interfere with the proper coordination of all in the efforts for peace.
Only where questions of boundary or of busi- ness dealings enter need there be any difficulty in the adjustment, and, after all, these are just the problems that the courts of our present states settle. The issues between states nearly always go back to issues between individuals with only the additional complication of decid- ing who shall settle them. There was, for ex-
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ample, no question as to the punishment that should be given to the assassin of the Crown Prince of Austria. The war came, ostensibly, at least, over deciding who should investigate and the insistence of the Austrians that the Serbian state should be subordinated to the Austrian in the investigations on Serbian soil. Provided only that some tribunal exists which is recognized as fair and as having authority to settle disputes, there need be no serious con- troversies even over these questions. This is all the more probable if, with the habit of ap- peal, national honor becomes less touchy, as would be the natural tendency. After all, the individual has no vital direct interest in the aggrandizement of the national territory. His interest in the expansion of the nation is an indirect and acquired one, and while it will probably never be lost no matter how com- pletely an international organization may be developed, it can be expected to become more rational, more restricted, to shrink to some- thing like the rivalry between the states in the United States of America. A century ago, still more at the time of the formation of the Union, the states had each its own honor and pride that threatened war on several occasions over the adjustment of boundaries. To-day, we see new divisions made as of the Dakotas and recti-
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fications of boundaries suggested with no feel- ing at all except on the part of a few people who see some direct effect upon their financial prosperity. An instance of such a friendly ad- justment of a national ambition was recently given when Norway was established as an in- dependent state.
What we must hope to develop in an inter- national state is a condition in which competi- tions and the emotions that grow out of compe- tition shall be between " the individuals and classes of individuals rather than between na- tions,— that the competition of nations shall be restricted to matters directly connected with nationality, and that a national matter shall not be made of purely individual business affairs. Most of the dangerous rivalries of the modern industrial state arise from conflicts in competi- tion for trade. A firm of one country fails to make a sale in competition with a firm of an- other country. It believes that it is due to prejudice or to undue activity of the officials of the successful country, and bad blood arises. An international agreement should insure equality of treatment so completely that there is no room for suspicion and no necessity for the interference of the national government out- side of its own territory. Then competition would be between individuals and there would
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be no occasion for raising questions of national honor over any trade matters. An interna- tional tribunal might be necessary to adjust disputes between citizens of different countries, but they would soon come to be adjusted as dif- ferences between individuals and not between nations. Then national rivalries might well be confined to competitions in advancing general order and welfare and not to quarrels over the minor advantages of citizens.
If we find that rivalries and sources of dis- agreement are no sharper between nations than between groups within nations, we may also say that many of the ties which unite men most strongly do not stop at the national boundaries. We all have scientific friends of other nations who are in closer sympathy with our views than some of our own citizens. The same may be said of political theories, of religious belief, and certainly of literature and art. The best illus- tration is the international socialist movement. To be sure, this very fortunately or unfor- tunately, as one thinks of our own socialists or of the enemy's, was not strong enough to stand the feeling or emotion of nationalism in war time. But the sentiment of solidarity between members of the proletariat is growing faster than the similar feeling between the members of the employing group.
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The fundamental sympathies are by no means restricted by national boundaries. While one may close one 's eyes or ears against knowledge of distant atrocities when they are brought to our attention, one is impressed if not overcome by stories of massacres of Armenians or of the Africans in the Congo, almost as much as by the atrocities in Belgium. In case the event is striking and a large number of individuals are involved, a distant event attracts more at- tention and more sympathy than the ordinary mishaps even if in the total they result in more suffering than the single tragedy. Deaths from influenza arouse less emotion than do the bat- tle casualties of half the amount. An air raid that causes fifty deaths in Paris or London ex- cites the populace even of New York or Chi- cago much more than the motor vehicles that kill ten times the number in the streets of the home city. This is, of course, partly because the blame may be definitely attached in one case and not in the other, partly because the latter is a series of incidents far enough apart so that one is forgotten, if heard of at all, before the next appears.
Making all allowances for incidental differ- ences, it is clear that the sympathetic emotions may be sufficiently aroused by events that in- jure distant men and even men of the lower
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races to back up a judicial and executive au- thority in the infliction of punishment upon in- ternational criminals. That, after all, is the es- sential factor in the development of a practical internationalism. While the sympathetic emo- tions may weaken with distance, the disagree- able emotions of hate and resentment also show a similar, probably even a greater, reduction so that the balance is not far from equal. One cannot expect the enthusiasm for man in gen- eral to attain the strength of the emotion aroused by an appeal for the Stars and Stripes or for La France or the King. On the other hand, the whole world or mankind in general will not arouse the same hatred as that we now see exhibited towards the German or the Turk. It might be objected that the distances which separate the different parts of the world in space and still more in ideals are so great that one can never hope to bring them into the unified attitude towards problems that are es- sential for the proper control of the actions of each by a common ideal. Two answers may be made to that. In the first place, it is cer- tain that the modern inventions bring the world as a whole into closer communication than was thought possible within many of the single states of antiquity in which the national spirit developed. For the purpose of obtaining news
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and the diffusion of ideas all parts of the world are mechanically one through the agency of the press and the telegraph. The general spread of literacy has increased the possibility of a common understanding, and furthered the de- velopment of common ideals and the resulting common control, so that there is more of unity between America and Australia to-day than between neighboring parts of the Roman Em- pire of old or between different provinces of the Chinese Empire to-day. Probably the in- telligent classes of Russia and America are also more closely one than were Egypt and Gaul at the time of Christ. At the other social extreme, the I. W. W. and the Russian Bolshevist are equally moved by the same ideals and active in a common cause as is seen by the protest of the Bolshevists against the execution of Mooney, however little we may grant that they understood the circumstances and the mo- tives of that conviction. Taking ease of com- munication, degree of intelligence, and possi- bility of mutual confidence into consideration, we can safely say that the most remote parts of the civilized world are to-day more nearly united and more capable of constituting a single social group than were many of the smaller states even of the medieval and early modern period.
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The only one of the fundamental instincts which has been important in the formation of nations which would be lacking in the interna- tional organization is hate, and its similars, jealousy and suspicion. In Chapter III we traced the importance of hate in uniting the na- tion against an outside force or other nations. If all the nations were gathered into one there would be no one to hate; at least, the hatreds would always lead to the disruption of the wider union rather than to its unification. The only substitute for this would be hatred of disrup- tion itself, and of the wars and bad feelings that result. This would not give the same thrills and enthusiasms of hate that are provided by the hatred of persons and groups. The superna- tional state might and must be content with the cooperative instincts as a basis for its forma- tion, together with these colorless emotions of opposition to abstractions and dread of the con- dition before the universal state was formed. Eeligions seems to get on fairly well since heretic hunting went out of fashion and they were restricted to hatred of evil in the abstract. The supernationality must trust to similar mo- tives. For a generation or two, it is safe to prophesy, the human race will be sufficiently impressed with the horrors of war under mod- ern conditions to be united by opposition to
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that alone, and by the time that lesson has been forgotten it is to be hoped that the habit of set- tling disputes by rational methods may have become sufficiently well established to be con- tinued.
Some have argued not merely that an ex- ternal enemy is necessary to hold a nation to- gether, but that fighting itself is essential to the welfare of mankind. Two arguments have been advanced for this, one that elimination of the unfit is necessary to the process of evo- lution and that war is the one method of elimi- nation that is left to mankind; another that fighting arouses emotions that are essential to the development of the individual, or that it alone can produce the highest character. A little examination of each of these assumptions shows that all rest on fallacious analogies. First, it is probably true that part of the selec- tion that acted in eliminating the unfit in earlier times was conflict between tribes and indi- viduals. When fighting was with fists and teeth or even with bludgeons and swords, the strong man, the courageous and intelligent would survive and the weak and unintelligent would be eliminated. Now that fighting is with instruments of precision at great distances and between those self-selected for bravery, or se- lected after physical examination that shall
send only the best to fight while the unfit are safe at home, the condition is reversed. In modern war the fit are eliminated and the unfit survive. Even the German contention that struggle between states will select the stronger states for survival might well be questioned, or at least it may be questioned whether the state that survives in a struggle will be of the type that is most desirable. One may indeed doubt whether the world would be better or human happiness greater in a world dominated by the Germany of William the Second, than in one in which there was only the weak and divid- ed Germany of Goethe, Schiller, and Hegel. The state fitted to survive in a struggle is apparent- ly the one under an autocratic government, that shall emphasize the crass material forces and subordinate the intellectual and artistic. ,Itl must subject the wills of the many to the one and permit initiative only in the development of implements of war and of the many material resources that add to the effectiveness of the nation in war. This may include almost every- thing that improves effectiveness in physical ways, but at the expense of intellectual and ar- tistic values and individual independence. In spite of the efficiency of the latter, most civil- ized individuals would prefer to live in the Eng- land rather than in the Germany of pre-war
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times, and it were better for the world to mul- tiply states like England, America, and France than like Germany.
It is also by no means assured that war is necessary to develop the best in man's physical and mental nature. Some have asserted that there are changes in internal secretion neces- sary to the full development and health of the individual that can be induced only by fighting. Cannon * finds that an emotion of hate or anger and even the pleasanter forms of excitement stimulate an increased secretion of the adrenal glands which increases the strength of the indi- vidual temporarily. These and stimulation of other similar glands are the most important ef- fects upon the organism that would be produced by fighting and not by the more routine forms of bodily activity. That war is not worth while for the stimulation of these glands alone is evi- dent from the fact that they may be stimulated by athletic contests and even by the excitement of hard mental work and mental contests. One might well question whether their stimulation in any great amount is necessary ; in fact, there is some evidence that the effect of overstimula- tion is harmful rather than beneficial. All that is really needed is that the organs should not be
*W. B. Cannon: "Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Bage."
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permitted to atrophy through complete disuse and present evidence is that there is no great danger of that until life becomes much less ex- citing than is even peaceful civilized existence. The other argument for war lies in the im- provement that it is supposed to work in the moral nature of man. It is held that it is es- sential to man 's full development that he should be able on occasion to stand pain, to undergo every hardship for a disinterested end, and pre- sumably that war alone offers the occasion and sufficient incentive for the degree of self-sacri- fice needed to develop this character. That war does develop these qualities in many is undoubted. Whether this alone would bei a sufficient justification for war even if the quali- ties could be developed in no other way is very much open to question. That a nation should sacrifice fifty per cent of its youth between twenty and thirty, as did France in the last war, that great virtues might be shown by the other elements of its population does not appeal to the rational mind. If the price must be paid at short intervals, the men of virtue developed would be too few in number to compensate for the increase in quality. One must not forget in the reckoning the disagreeable and injurious effects upon men's character. If some men de- velop unsuspected virtues, others develop
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equally unexpected vices. Opposed to courage and self-sacrifice is the increase in cruelty and in bloodthirstiness, which seems equally un- avoidable in the conduct of war, modern as well as ancient. Opposed to the self-denial of the soldier and of the patriotic civilian who stints himself that the Allies may be fed, is the profi- teering of many who like vultures treat a war as a time for feeding fat at the public expense. Of the returning soldiers, some seem to have risen to new heights, these probably are the majority; others can find little satisfaction in the monotony of peace after the excitement of war, and suffer moral shipwreck; still others are relatively little affected. While the virtues of a nation at war are impressive, it is question- able whether the final benefit to character is worth what it cost the world in the last war. And as James has pointed out in his Moral Equivalents of War, almost if not quite the same effects may be wrought by the conflicts of peace. It is probable that the moral sacrifices made under the more natural incentives of peace are much more valuable than those forced by a great war. A sufficient training can be had from the constant conflicts with evil, with selfishness, and ignorance, offered in the most civilized and peaceful of states, to bring the race to a high standard of moral health.
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On the positive side much may be said even from the psychological point of view for the de- velopment of a League of Nations. The need is readily apparent. The present relation of the individual states is similar to that of individuals when social organization was first developing. While the instincts of the individual in his so- cial dealings have long been subordinated, whether he will or no, to rational guidance, to a course prescribed by the best knowledge of the group, the action of the state is still un- controlled action on impulse. True, ideals of international relationship have developed, rules that are recognized as honorable for the dec- laration of war and for the conduct of war when it has been declared, but these are fol- lowed only when it suits the convenience of the nation in question. The Germans had a theory and system of ideals of warfare at variance with those of the rest of the world, a theory that any act however frightful which produced results was right, and there was no one to interfere. A specious argument sufficed to strengthen them in their course in spite of the indignation of the world. Within the realm of international relationships there is only a gentleman's agreement on the rules that shall temper the cruelty of natural instincts. When a nation ceases to act like a gentleman there
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is no force that governs it, and there is always great likelihood that the desire to be considered honorable may break down under pressure. No means have been devised for enforcing ideals when the nation in question refuses to accept or live up to them.
While one might argue that the decisions of a nation are so slow that they can be subject to none of the precipitateness of the individual acts, that decisions of a nation should be made in the light of the ideals and experience of the race rather than in terms of mere instinct, this seems in practice not to be the case. There is all too frequently action under the influence of a widespread emotion. Not infrequently selfish motives control the rulers, and at other times the rulers are carried away by the emotion of the group. The problem is complicated for the worse, too, by the tendency to exaggerated ego on the part of the state or nation as a whole. The reverence which individuals have come to give the state prevents its interests from being considered calmly and with due reference to the rights of individuals and of other nations. The emphasis upon the welfare of the whole, which was necessary to develop in the individual a willingness to sacrifice his own interests and to subordinate his own instincts to the law, has resulted in raising the nation as a personi-
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fied entity upon so high a pinnacle that we all incline to believe that whatever it does is right, and that anything which will advance its interests is a sacred duty, no matter how much suffering may be inflicted upon other indi- viduals or states in the process. This belief that national need or even national pleasure or desire is above all law is so strong that it makes some curb upon international action quite as necessary as was control of the indi- vidual in the savage stage. As it is, claims are made by nations that would not stand for a moment in a civil court in a suit between indi- viduals.
To be sure, there is what is known as interna- tional law, but this is little more than a series of precedents for international action. Its only cogency is in the force of international public opinion. Where the common decency is suffi- ciently outraged by the action of one nation in peace or in war, other nations may inter- fere, but there is no recognized duty or even right of other states to do so, and no force which can be called in to prevent intended or threatened breaches of accepted international rules. That all nations feel keenly the approval or disapproval of others is shown by the propa- ganda carried on in neutral countries by both sides engaged in the Great War. Each step
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was argued at length, after it had been taken, in pamphlet and newspaper to influence the opinion of the citizens of the world or of the soldiers engaged. The Germans, in spite of their apparent callousness to moral or conven- tional ideals, were evidently alarmed at times by the universal condemnation of their acts, even when they did not accept the standards of those who condemned them or change their course. To be sure, the United States was driven into the war in the spirit of an interna- tional policeman, by resentment at the treat- ment of others as well as by the injuries to her own citizens, but she delayed two years before the leaders could sufficiently arouse the populace to favor intervention. At present the world is like a primitive community with- out a police force. One can expect that when an innocent pedestrian is attacked by a foot- pad a good citizen if near will come to his res- cue and perhaps punish the offender. All the world will approve such action, unless the mo- tives are misrepresented, but there is no or- ganized force for the protection of the weak or the punishment of the guilty or even for de- ciding who is guilty.
From historical analogies the world seems ready for a wider organization. We saw in the discussion of the development of nationality
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that a nation was likely to develop when an ideal or set of ideals had been prepared in the mass of people that were to constitute the na- tion, and some great incentive came which im- pelled to a realization of those ideals. The ideal of a League of Nations has been growing and becoming ever more specific for cen- turies. The cynic might object that the cen- turies of development are so long that there is no more hope now than ever — that Christ preached the brotherhood of man nearly two thousand years ago and that at short intervals ever since some one has repeated the plea and suggested means for its realization. While wars have perhaps been less frequent recently they have more than made up in ferocity. To this we must answer that the ideal of com- munity of interests has been growing more defi- nite and less exaggerated. We have not merely the Utopian schemes of Kant and the general practical plan of Metternich, but we have a widespread belief in their efficacy on the part of the common people, and we have seen some of them realized in a small way in The Hague conventions. Lack of confidence in any regu- lation on the part of the practical statesman or politician limited the effectiveness of these agreements, but they did provide a standard of judgment, even when violated, which was
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not without its effects in guiding the action of neutral governments. Talk with any one of the common people, in America at least, and if we may believe the reporters, in almost any one of the civilized countries, and one discovers a widespread belief in the necessity for an in- ternational or supernational organization. The ideal is prepared and generally accepted.
The immediate incentive of escape from a particular danger or obtaining relief from in- justice or peculiar suffering, is perhaps not so strong as it has usually been where nations have developed. There was sufficient suffering in the war just past on the part of the soldiers who participated, and perhaps still more keen anguish felt by the relatives of those who fought and died or were severely injured to make them willing to do anything to avoid a repetition. The great lack is that there is no one in particular to blame for a war, there is as cause only an impersonal condition of lack of organization; while in the case of the op- pressed peoples who have risen to form a new nation some ruler or some other nation was to blame and could be hated and fought. Whether the resentment against a condition of society and desire for greater security from suffer- ing, without any reaction against an external force or individual, will suffice to hold the world
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together is the question. That it was sufficient to organize the separate states on a principle of justice is assured. We may only hope that with the increase in intelligence and imagina- tion, hatred of war and injustice in the abstract may be enough to induce a general trial of a new system, and that habits will develop after it has been tried that will make possible for all time a rule of right in international relations.
In no single respect does the psychology of nationality offer any reasonable objection to the formation of an international society or League of Nations. It is an obvious next step in the development of a social organization, and the social instincts and the social ideals and habits offer sufficient basis for its development and for its proper functioning when it has been developed. The one instinctive or emo-' tional element that is lacking to it which has been effective in the development of the pres- ent nations is the fear of outside force and the hatred of a common oppressor. Even this may be supplied in the same way that fear of the violence and injustice of an unorganized society may be said to provide an incentive for the for- mation of the local political organization. The disorders and outrages of a Bolshevist regime serve as an irrefutable argument in favor of any political organization, however imperfect it
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may be in any of its details. Similarly, the hor- rors of the most civilized of wars make in- sistent demand for the development of any form of international organization that prom- ises the least chance of success.
It cannot be supposed that the interna- tional organization will greatly diminish the importance of nationality in the world rela- tions. Nations will always exist as next to the largest unit of organization. It is essen- tial that they should; no wider state is con- ceivable except as an organization of the pres- ent national states. It is even questionable whether the national pride will ever suffer seri- ous diminution, however thoroughly the larger unit should be organized, and however com- pletely it may be accepted by the world at large. The most that can be anticipated, and all that is desirable is that the excess of national as- sertiveness should be subordinated to the good of the common whole, that national egotism should be restrained sufficiently to respect the rights of others. All that is good in nationality, all its enthusiasms for the common weal, and all of the international rivalries might well be retained and transformed where necessary into competition for the attainment of mutually beneficial ends. That the sentiment of loyalty to separate nations would ever be greatly re-
308 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONALITY
duced is not likely and would be a much to be deplored result. It is doubtful if consciousness of belonging to a world league would ever re- duce the consciousness of being an American or a Frenchman to the extent even that the Scotchman has been subordinated to the Eng- lishman and still less to the extent that the Yankee or Southerner has been subordinated to the American. One may venture to hope that the remnants of a national consciousness might become less painful in the process of subordi- nation to the wider loyalty than is the national consciousness of the Irishman. One may well question whether the allegiance to an interna- tional league would ever take on the personal form of loyalty that is connected with the na- tional consciousness. It would probably always be more like the general sense of decency com- mon to all civilized beings, an extension of the dictates of conscience from the merely personal relations, as they exist at present, to include the acts of nations as well as of individuals. It is not even necessary that the entity should be personified and individualized as the nation has been personified and individualized. But with time and the formation of new habits of thought and ideals of conduct the sense of be- longing to a community of mankind might well be strengthened.
NATIONALITY IN LEAGUE OF NATIONS 309
That the first formulation of rules for the guidance of the wider league shall be perfect is not necessary and is not to be expected. As in the development of all governments the first attempt must be tentative, and the instruments must be tested in practice and modified where found defective. If the suggested draft of a constitution shall be sufficient to tide the world over a few crises, and to confirm the desire for a working agreement, it will suffice. Once the world accepts the principle that a better way than war exists for the settlement of interna- tional disputes, the best machinery for settling them will be developed by a gradual process of trial and error. After the habit of appealing to right rather than to might has been estab- lished, war will be as unthinkable as a private duel. Meantime it is essential that the broader sympathies now wasted in more or less vague sentimentalism shall be crystallized about a definite agreement. When that agreement shall have had the tradition of a century behind it, it will be considered as immutable as the good lawyer now regards the constitution, and with a few centuries of practice it will assume the fixity of the moral law.
INDEX
America, Development of nationality in, llOff.
American, constitution, as an embodiment of ideals, 232ff
Anthropometry, 13
Balch, Emily, 149
Baldwin, 45f
Beginnings of nationality,
91f
Beliefs, social, 199ff British constitution as an
ideal, 232
Cannon, W. B., 297 Cavell, Edith, 74 Clan system, 7 Commercial disputes as a
cause of wars, 283f Condillac, 109 Country, its effects upon
nationality, 237ff Criminal and society, 79 Crowds and the leader, 169 Crowd, Reasoning in, 169
Darwin, 24
Descartes, 109
Dress and nationality, 152
Economic basis of the
state, 268ff Emotions of the crowd, 171f
of the nation, 212ff Encyclopedists, 109 England, Nationality in,
103ff Environment and physical
characters, 14, 148
Fighting instincts necessary for social development, 53f
France, Nationality in, 105f
French Revolution, Nation- ality in the, 115ff
French Canadians, Natural- ization of, 131ff
Frightfulness as a war weapon, 72
Fryatt, Captain, 74
German unity, Development
of, 122f Germany, Nationality in,
106f Government, developed by
trial and error, 259ff Government as embodiment
of ideals, 255f
311
312
INDEX
Greece, Nationality in, 93ff Gregariousness, Instinct of,
28 Group, Fear of, 32f
Habits, Change of, in nat- uralization, 141f Hate in international or- ganization, 294f in the development of
nations, 81ff and religion, 75ff and war, 83ff
Honor, national, 215, 220ff Hypnotism, Action of the crowd compared to, 167ff Hume, 109
Ideals, Effects of, in nat- uralization, 152
and the nation, 224-228
and the League of Na- tions, 279flf Imitation, 45ff
in the crowd, 172ff Instincts, Development of, 25ff
individual and racial, 24
and feeling, 28
Social, 28ff
Crowd controlled by, 166- 175
and ideals, 37ff
Defects of, as a means of government, 249ff
and the League of Na- tions, 278
Intelligence, Increase in, with change of social environment, 149f International law, 302f Italy, Nationality in, 119f
James, 24, 299
Jennings, 64
Jews, Nationality of, 92f
Keane, 14, 16 Kellogg, Vernon, 73 Kinship, symbolic, 8
Laniettrie, 109
Language and nationality,
17, 143, 236f Laws as formulated ideals,
274ff
LeBon, 166, 172, 180, 184fl Liberty, ideal of, 41ff Lichnowsky, 82 Literature and nationality,
236f
Locke, 260
Lowell, A. Lawrence, 183 Loyalty as measured by
willingness to fight,
156f Luther, 76
McDougall, 50 Maitland, 260 Marvin, 96 Mercier, Cardinal, 74 Middle ages, Nationality in, 99f
INDEX
313
Minor groups and the na- tion, 241ff Morley, 113
Nation as a social concept,
214, 222f, 235 National consciousness, 186ff pride and the interna- tional state, 301, 307f Nationality, Definition of, 5 and the state, 249-277 Theories of, 23, 164ff,
240ff
Netherlands, Nationality in the, fOl
Paramecium , illustrative of social phenomena, 64
Profession, Choice of, de- termined by social ideals, 41
Party, Influence of, 183
Party vs. nation, 283
Perceptions of the group, 191ff
Perla, 215
Phillpott, 8
Plato, 6, 109
Political ideals, 229ff
Punishment by social dis- approval, 227
Race and family, 6 and nation, 3, 245f capacity, 12 Mixtures of, in Europe,
16 prejudice, 128
Religion and nationality,
243 Rivalry of nations a source
of progress, 285ff Rome, Nationality in, 96ff
School and naturalization,
145f
Schurz, Carl, 136, 149 Social alignments deter- mined by hate, 67f contempt as a force in
naturalization, 140f ideals, 32ff
Conflict of with racial
and individual, 44f Development of, 54ff instincts, development of,
49 Socialism a doctrine of
hate, 80f
Stephenson, N. W., 81 Suggestibility of the crowd,
170 Switzerland, Nationality in,
lOlff
Sympathy, 29f developed from maternal
instinct, 50f international, 290ff
Tagore, 12
Tarde, 45f, 173, 180
Thought of the nation, 181,
192 to 206 Totem, 9
314
INDEX
Value as social conventions,
38f Voltaire, 109
Wallace, Graham, 51 War essential to progress, 294 to 299
Wealth as a social ideal.
226ff Will of a nation, 206 to
209, 210
Zimrnern, 95, 164, 237
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